No Good Deed
by freefallinginlove
Summary: Damon begins his fight with his past, repentance his order of the day. Elena doesn't know when to stop - until, of course, she pushes too far. He thought the past was over, until she asked him to fill in the blanks.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Ummhmm, no, this doesn't belong to me. I promise. I don't even like these characters (uhhuh, that one was a lie). Enjoy this one; it's weird and possibly wonderful. **

* * *

Elena had been here, in his room, more than once, when he had been feeling extra welcoming – which, in true Damon fashion, meant that he was feeling just a _tiny_ bit welcoming at all. She stood in the doorway awkwardly as he looked up from the book he was reading – another rare occurrence – and waited for him to notice her.

_He had noticed her immediately, her scent, her slow grace, the sound of her breathing and the quiet stillness she held that directly opposed his natural... enthusiasm... and fitted almost impeccably into her solid, enticing, incredible relationship with Stefan. _

"What?" He asked, raising an eyebrow and frowning slightly as her heartbeat quickened. She had not expected his swift response, and she had jolted as he smirked at her sudden fright. "Sorry." His lips moved before he could consider the words, and her answering smile was one he had not quite expected.

"No, no!" She said, raising a hand. She had always waited, outside his room, to be invited in. Offering him the same courtesy as the one he was forced to live with was one thing she felt right. She felt better for it; he felt a little bit more welcome – _just a little_ – though it was enough for him to glance up in her direction and nod. "I didn't expect you to be busy."

"Would you like to come in?" Again, he spoke without realising, and, ducking his head, acquiesced to her silent request to join him on the bed. She crossed the room, removed her shoes and drew her knees up to her chest, looking at the various objects on his mantelpiece, waiting for the elder Salvatore to begin the conversation which always, _always_ ended the same way.

_'What are you looking at?'_

_'Those... things.' She would wave her hand, almost waiving a right to ask the next question, 'Where did you get them all?'_

_'Places.' He would shrug, not looking at the items, pretending they were invisible, or, perhaps, hoping they were no longer there. As though this were a scene they had practised, being acted upon a stage, Elena would glance up, at the ceiling, then at Damon, and back to the assorted items on the mantelpiece. She would rise and then, as she touched the first item, a small, black wristband, fastened at both ends with a piece of steel or silver, Elena was never enlightened, Damon would appear at her shoulder and pull her away. 'I'd like you to leave, Elena.'_

_ It was never a command, it was never a question. A simple statement that she always heeded, watching for his reaction as she took her silent steps away from him, rubbing her bare feet on the carpet because she had forgotten to return to the bed and pick up her small, light slip-ons. There would be silence for the longest time, she would most likely return to Stefan, and Damon would most likely return to whatever he had been doing in the moments before Elena had disturbed him._

_ It was either that, or he would leave to find his latest victim. Elena never waited, Elena never knew. _

"Well, aren't you going to start staring at my fireplace, Elena?" Her thoughts of those conversations – if one could call them that – were shattered by Damon's voice. "It's been ten minutes, I'm getting antsy."

"Very funny," She whispered, hating raising her voice in his room. It felt... almost sacrilegious. As though somebody else belonged there, sitting on the bed with him, not her. Not Elena.

"What's wrong?"

"I just..." She glanced at him; he had, as per usual, one eyebrow raised and a small crease in his forehead as he waited, patiently for her to speak. _Unlike him,_ she mused as she considered telling him the truth, then decided against it. "It's nothing."

"Said the hypochondriac. Two days later, he was dead." Damon laughed at his own joke – another unusual point of the conversation, and relaxed against his pillows. "Come on, Elena, I know it's something, otherwise you wouldn't have lied. That's like the first rule of being a woman, isn't it? If it's something, '_it's nothing'_?" He mimicked her quietly, and she let out a harsh bark of laughter, enjoying this conversation, even though really, this had not been her aim.

"Fine." She hmph'ed and he rolled his eyes. "I was asking Stefan about what you guys did between... Katherine," She paused to see him stiffen, then lean back against his pillows again, trying not to show off his discomfort before she could begin to say another word. "And coming here..."

"Not a lot." He was short with her, not facing her, but staring at the window with a small frown on his face. "... well, there was a lot that Stefan did, but there was nothing," He stopped and Elena saw his eyes flicker over to the mantelpiece, straight to the thick, leather bracelet he was so defensive of, before he spoke again. "_Nothing_, particularly interesting about my side."

She sighed and shrugged at his attempt at indifference, her lips curving into a slight smile as she realised that his reaction was certainly _not_ one of apathy.

"And I would appreciate it if we didn't have the same scene as usual, Elena." He muttered suddenly, in such a tone that she probably should have nodded and left the room. Feeling particularly impetuous, she disregarded him entirely and rose to pick up the band again. "_I. Said. No!"_

In a blink, he had his hand tight around her wrist, gripping her so hard that she let out a quiet whimper and tried to step back. With eyes darker than polished ebony, he hissed the words again, and her fingers released the leather strap, hearing it to fall to the floor with a quiet noise. Her voice would not come to her as he released her in turn and crouched to the floor, cradling the band in his fingers and murmuring in Italian.

"Mi dispiace, mi... mi dispiace," The words became a chant and Elena blinked, almost transfixed at his frozen form, holding his hands together as though he were cradling a child. He wanted... he needed to apologise, but for what, she did not know.

"Damon?" She tried his name; he merely glanced up at her and demanded she leave immediately. In Italian. She stared straight back at him, repeating his name in almost a growl.

"You don't touch my things." He growled, this time in perfectly understandable English, and she flinched. She did not mean for their conversation to go that way, and she wanted him to know that, but his words were more frightening than any silence she had ever experienced. "Leave, Elena."

"What?" _Surely he wasn't serious? _"Damon, I-I'm sorry-"

"No, Elena, you're going to leave," He said furiously, "Whatever happened between Francesca and-" He stopped and shook his head. "Elena, please."

There was silence as Elena crossed the room, once again not thinking about her shoes, which lay on the floor beside Damon's bed, forgotten in anger and confusion. Damon waited until she was gone; he waited for solitude to replace the bracelet on the mantelpiece. He did not wait to cry.

* * *

**Yes? No? **

**Review?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I am a dark, dark person, and I wish I had invented the Vampire Diaries. I didn't however, so I get nothing out of this. I quite like the plot though. **

**Overheard on MSN:**

_K: what could Damon Never Have_

_M: __erm a consience? until he met Elena_

_K: __... he did have a conscience... and i am setting out to prove this with this fic_

****

_Uhhuh. You heard me. _

* * *

**2010 **

When Elena and Stefan decided to call it a night, and the pair of them were ready to part – _though it should be noted that Stefan did not like leaving Elena at all – _she began to search for her shoes.

There were probably three places they could have been – Stefan's room, the porch, or Damon's room, and she feared heading toward the latter, even though she distinctly remembered toeing off the striped pumps as she joined him, sitting down on his bed. They would be there, but she feared disturbing him again.

"I can go, if you want?" Stefan offered, still clinging on to the last vestiges of their contact, reluctant to let go of her hand. She shook her head and frowned slightly. "If you're sure."

"He won't hurt me." She said, with confidence, though the sound of her voice was far stronger than the conviction of her thoughts. And, with that, Stefan released her, and she took twenty-nine steps down the hall to stand outside Damon's bedroom.

She did not enter, because she did not need to. Her shoes were placed daintily outside of his closed door – a strangeness in itself, because Damon rarely shut the door to anyone – with a small sliver of paper resting upon them.

"_Elena," _She read his words aloud because they sounded ridiculous read in her head, "_I apologise for my behaviour, and feel you deserve an explanation I cannot give, like PMS or an overwhelming lack of conscience. I would be wrong to lie to you, however. You deserve far more than that, and I wish to give it to you. I will explain, Elena, I promise, but not tonight. Please do not knock on my door. I will come to you. Damon."_

She lifted her feet and placed them into her shoes, glancing up at the hardwood door once again, and pulling away in order to make her way home. As she took the first of those twenty-nine steps back to say goodbye to Stefan, she froze in place, and if anyone had asked her why, she would have sworn that she could hear Damon sobbing on the other side of his door.

_**Italy, 1992**_

In the darkness, she reached up a small hand to touch his face, tracing the deep-set veins that were protruding from his cheeks with her fingertips as he leaned over her, dark eyes matching with her grey ones.

"Beautiful," She murmured quietly, running her finger across the blood that ran around his lips, drawing it into her own mouth and tasting herself, tasting the metallic, addictive flavour that he craved every time they touched. "_Bella_, Damon." She raised her neck, arching her back as he slid his lips up against her collarbone, running his tongue across her bare skin, across the marks he had left there, tasting her blood and her sweat on his lips.

"No," He returned, "Not in a million years." She whimpered as he moved within her again, her hips lifting to his with a low groan. She drew her hand up his arm and raised her leg around his torso, pulling him just that little bit closer.

"Yes," She murmured, then, as he hit _that _spot right within her, louder and longer, "_Yes, Damon..." _She arched against him again, and his answering smile was more than she could ever have hoped for. He never smiled, not for anyone. Except for her.

"I love your touch," He murmured moments later, pulling back and rolling away from her. Her fingers trailed down his body and slowly ran her hand across his pubic bone, making him swallow loudly and glance across at her, "And I love your blood." _And I love you. _He would not admit his thoughts now. He doubted he would _ever_ speak them aloud, he was far too afraid of another rejection.

"No more tonight," She sighed, "I am," She let out a laugh and found her hand resting against a very solid chest as Damon pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed it, dropping it as his head flopped back onto the pillows. "... tired."

He grinned at her and brought his wrist to his lips, biting it to draw blood. Offering it to her, he pressed the pulse-point against her mouth, waiting for her tongue to snake out to touch him, taste him and feel the revitalisation it would bring.

"That feels..." He growled, the rumble growing from his chest and up through his lips, "You can't know how damn good that feels," He smirked as he felt her left hand grip his wrist, holding him to her mouth, her other hand sliding down his chest and straight to his waiting hardness.

"I think I can," She breathed, "Better than... _anything."_

"I won't disagree." A breath, a beat where she ran her tongue around the bite on his wrist and he groaned again. It was almost... unbearable.

"I want..." She squeezed him, and he laughed lightly.

"I thought you were tired?"

"_Damon_!"

"_Francesca_!" He mocked lightly, but found his hands at her waist, lifting her onto him, lifting her over him and feeling her tight around him. It was almost too good, and he could barely resist rolling over and taking her again.

_Resistance had never been Damon's greatest trait._

He flipped their positions with a growl, and she smiled because that was all she had asked for, all she had wanted. _Him_. He licked the hollow at her throat again and pulled at the skin there with his teeth. He was careful, but he could not resist the pull of the bite marks again. She needed him, he wanted her. He _craved _her, and he took a deep breath as he realised that was what he felt as he rubbed his fingertips in circles at the apex of her legs and made her arch up underneath him.

She was barely able to breathe, her head spinning violently as he kissed her for longer than he ever had before.

"Damon!" She withdrew first, fearing a collapse and sure her dizziness was due to the blood he had consumed from her, "We-"

"_Francesca_!" There was a beat of silence, as Francesca's father's voice echoed in the corridor. She felt the sorrow that was Damon pulling away, his weight lifting from hers as he scrambled to disappear; only squeezing her hand as he vanished. "Ah, Francesca," He opened her bedroom door, flooding the room with unwelcome light at the same time as she finished winding a silver silk scarf around her neck. With Damon's blood seeping through her system, her wounds would vanish in a second, but she was used to doing this as a precaution. "I am sorry to wake you at this hour, darling," His fingers twisted into her scarf as he saw it glisten in the light, and he let out a curious laugh, "What are you doing wearing this? In this ridiculous heat?"

He waved a hand around, creating a rather welcome breeze in the stuffy room. Francesca herself had opened her window to allow Damon to enter, and the breeze from the river close to the house came in, cooling the area by the sills ever-so-slightly. It was still ridiculously hot, however, and Francesca fought a smile as she felt a strong gaze settle upon her.

"I..." She shrugged, feigning as she raised her eyes to the darkest corner of her bedroom, where Damon's reassuring smile almost glistened in the darkness. "I suppose I must have fallen asleep wearing it, _papa._" She shrugged again, and in one swift movement, she pulled on the end of the fabric, removing it with a colourful flourish. "Damon Salvatore gave it to me," She could not even resist the blush that flared as she mentioned his name; "I suppose I could not bear to take it off."

"Very sweet," Her father sighed happily as he considered the blossoming relationship that lay in the future of his daughter, "Your... your mother wants you." A silence, the beat which passed filled with an unspeakable weight and thoughts of what would soon to come to pass. Francesca knew that Damon knew, and she knew that she was naked beneath her covers. Both of those facts made her distinctly uneasy as she looked up at her father, who was watching her with worry upon his features.

"Of course." She nodded, "Would you give me a moment, I will be right there." She gestured at the doorway and her father nodded.

"Si." Her father left, and in her haste to dress, Francesca nearly fell from her bed. Damon caught the poor girl, holding her naked form upright as his hands slid down her sides, past her breasts and to her hips as he kissed her slowly, languidly, in order to calm her. He took deep breaths in and out, waiting for her breathing to even out before he pulled away, handing her a pair of slippers and a white nightdress, his small smile as she pulled it on making her breath hitch.

"Damon-" He caught her in a searing kiss before she could speak any further.

"I _will_ be here when you return." His fingers traced the length of her cheek and he smiled again, "It will be alright." She nodded silently but did not allow herself to believe that as the truth. Slowly, and with a quick squeeze of Damon's hand, she padded into the corridor and looked both ways as though crossing the busiest and most dangerous road in the middle of Milan. Then, with a moment's glance back into the room, taking in the billowing curtains and the absence of her _Damon_ in her bed, she sighed and took off down the short corridor, feeling the blood pounding in her ears, and the soft soles of her slippers beneath her feet. A juxtaposition she would wish never to feel again.

_Not after tonight._

_**2010**_

Damon Salvatore did not _enjoy_ murder. That should be noted by those who wished to _truly_ understand the elder Salvatore brother. He did not see its necessity; when, in truth, a source could be obtained, drained, influenced and abandoned, no worse off than they had existed before. If, however, he were feeling particularly dangerous, wicked or vindictive, he would drink to kill, sometimes even maiming deliberately.

It was a horrible thing, however, and it played on his mind whenever he was forced to confront his past. His brother made him out to be a darker person than he really was, and that affected Damon greatly, because, truth be told, he loved Stefan, even though given half the chance, he would rip off his head.

He stood on her window ledge and let himself in with little difficulty, ducking around the corner and picking up a teddy bear. His hands settled upon it and he waited, in the semi-darkness, for Elena to appear. He knew Stefan would not be there, and he knew there would be no escape for her, not tonight.

In his head, he recounted everything he would be able to tell Elena tonight and some things that he wanted never to speak of again. His lips parted in a sigh as the light clicked on, and Elena's responsive shriek seemed to set the entire house on edge, even though both Jenna and Jeremy were asleep.

"Please, don't scream. I've had a headache since I was turned because of the screaming." He shook his head and Elena frowned slightly as she stepped closer to him.

"You're breaking Mr. Snuggles." She said simply, throwing herself down on her bed. Damon's answering laugh was enough to set her heart rate at ten times what it usually was. She was afraid of him, tonight, and he was fully aware of the fact.

"Sorry, Snuggles." He shrugged and threw the soft toy at Elena, hoping she would be able to fix it, but feeling guilty for the destruction anyway. "Listen... I don't want to talk about what happened before. I'm sorry for throwing you out of my room, and I'm sorry I snapped about the bracelet." He held out his wrist to show that yes, in fact, he was wearing it, "It just... means a lot to me."

"Okay." She nodded back at him, flicking her hair over her shoulders. "Well, go on, then, Damon. What _did _you want to say?"

* * *

_A/n: Please Review. I quite like it when people love, or hate my work (and give me a reason why...)_


	3. Chapter 3

**_Disclaimer: No, I don't own them. I own a copy of Otis Redding's boomting song though. Uhhuh, I called it boomting. I don't own the lyrics to that, either, but I think 'tis a bit necessary..._**

**_To quote Elphaba (Wicked): "One more Disaster I can add to My Generous Supply..."_**

**_Enjoy!_**

* * *

_**2010 **_

Elena left him there, alone with his thoughts as he tried to explain how he could hear her, again. This time she was louder, this time she was begging, but the words were always the same.

_Damon! Please, please... do this, for me! If you love me, you'll do this..._

He bit his bottom lip as he stared up at the ceiling, fighting to stave off the guilt, the sickness that overcame him. _If you love me_. He thought of those four words more than once, and every time he did he had to bite back the rush of pain that came with it.

He did not enjoy murder. He heard her words every time he killed. For better, or for worse.

"Did you love her?" Elena's voice broke through the words, and he managed two words – ones that made her gasp and look away.

"To death," He nodded, and for a dreadful moment, he thought his heart might fail. A pair of arms enveloped him, and for a second he hoped, no, he _thought_ they belonged to her. He knew it was impossible, yet he knew that it would be perfection to feel her again, and he wanted it. He did not move to console Elena, as he knew she was trying to do for him, instead raising his hand to his hair and pressing his forehead to his forearm as he felt the lump in his throat and the burn at his eyes. He could barely breathe, even though he would never admit a weakness like that to anyone.

Minutes later, Elena, suddenly filled with discomfort, pulled back and away to see his face drawn into an awful grimace, pain and sheer hatred filling his features. He did not want this, she knew, and he did not know how to stop his own pain. He looked up at Elena as she quietly cleared her throat, but bowed his head as he saw the pity on her face. He did not need her pity, and he certainly did not want it.

He did not want any of it.

_**Italy, 1992**_

She sat at the edge of her mother's bed, her legs crossed and her eyes closed. A strengthening breath, then she looked upon the shadow of the woman who used to be her mother. With sunken eyes and a paled countenance staring back at her, she could do nothing but draw away.

"Francesca, darling," Her mother gripped her hand and pulled her upright, almost out of her seat. _She had a surprisingly strong grip for a dying woman,_ Francesca mused, and then, _she is cold._ "Don't lean away;" With a smile, her mother attempted to sit up, "I'm not contagious."

"Do not speak like that!" Francesca was upright in a second, leaning forward and frowning at her mother. The sudden movement sent a surge of heat flooding between her legs, followed by the sticky dampness she probably should have been ashamed of. She knew if she took no action, it would slide down her thighs and into some kind of reality. Immediately, she pressed her legs tighter together, feeling her face grow warm.

It had been Damon, however, who had caused such a meltdown, and that was what left her smiling, yet still somewhat embarrassed. Her lips curved into a half-smile, and she ran her hand against the fabric of her nightdress and she looked back up at her mother.

"By now, I think you must understand, my darling," Francesca's mother reached over to touch her daughter's hand again, and she smiled lightly. "That there is no turning back from this. I most likely will not recover, and I need to..." She pulled her closer and quietly patted her hand. "I need to speak with you about..." Her breath was slow, and she shuddered as she exhaled his name, "Damon."

"What about him, mother?" Francesca frowned slightly, entirely confused. She barely spoke of Damon around her parents, just a mention every-so-often, so there was no reason for her mother's distaste, _was there_?

"I know his type." She whispered, and Francesca bit back the retort of '_how could you?' _as her mother leaned forward and spoke the words she never thought she would hear. "I know he is a vampire, Francesca, and _you_ need to know that you have to be..." There was silence as her mother weighed her choice of her next word, "Careful."

"Sorry?" She raised her palm to silence her daughter, and, as she had been taught to, Francesca stilled to wait for her mother's explanation.

"You have to be careful. Please... don't get too attached to him." She stopped and watched her daughter's dismay for a moment. "He is a Salvatore, is he not?" _Salvation, _Francesca nearly whispered, though she remained silent for fear of her mother's fury.

"Yes, mother." She nodded.

"Then he is dangerous. Do not let yourself get hurt because of him, sweetheart." Her mother sighed, closing her eyes, "They are dangerous. They bring trouble with them, the Salvatores, and I do not want you to get hurt."

Her mother bit her tongue then, for the words which were about to come – _You have never been in love before - _were obviously true, yet would have flustered her daughter beyond comprehension. In the darkness of the nights Francesca had spent without Damon – for her mother did know that Damon had been a regular, yet almost invisible houseguest for nearly two years – she had heard her daughter speak in her sleep about how she adored him.

"Are they so bad, mother?" Francesca would not argue with her mother, not while she was entombed in her bedcovers like this. It was hell to watch her mother suffer through this alone, yet Francesca knew there was nothing even Damon could do.

"_They, _in themselves, are not bad. It is the aftermath they cause which is terrible." She stopped, "Consider, Francesca, what will happen to you when Damon leaves." A thought crossed the younger girl's mind, and her mother wondered whether it had been the right thing to say. "Consider..." She stopped, "Perhaps consider what will happen later on. He may not leave," She stopped and frowned slightly, sucking on her bottom lip hopefully, "But then again, he may change his mind. There may be an ending," She sighed, "And he may move onto new beginnings. Without you."

It was silent in the room between them, and Francesca wanted to scream, just to break it, and to bring Damon to her. _At least, she hoped it would bring Damon to her. _

"I am sorry, Francesca," Her mother sighed, "Truly, I am." She paused again, "This was inane, and, I apologise for waking you-" Her breath came in a pant, and she gripped her chest, suddenly and tightly, fisting her bedclothes in her hands. "Your father!" She called quickly, then, cringing, "Quickly!"

"Mother!" Silence, the low gurgle of her mother's breath as she breathed her last. "Madre? _Madre_?" Francesca could not breathe. Everything seemed constricted and tight and suddenly she was on the floor, pulling at the duvet, at the covers which slid to the floor.

She felt frozen in time as she heard her mother's words intermingling with those of the music she had assumed was in her head.

_"I left my home in Georgia,_

_Headed for the 'Frisco bay,_

_'Cause I've had nothing to live for,_

_And look like nothin's gonna come my way"_

Her head snapped up at the sound of the radio, playing so softly that she would not have noticed it as their conversation had progressed. Now that she was sitting alone on the floor, for in the back of her mind, she knew her mother was gone, she wished for _his _arms to be around her, carrying her to her bed and clutching her, trying to make her forget.

Her father found her soon enough, however, with the radio still playing Otis Redding, her conversation replaying in her head constantly – _What will you do when he leaves you behind? _

When she managed to stumble back to bed, her father assuring her that they would speak in the morning, she found her bedroom empty. There was the lingering scent of Damon, and there was the lingering colour of blood on her bed sheets, which she knew she would need to banish before the sun rose. Without the comfort of Damon to envelop her, and wondering whether this was the moment he had decided to leave her and move on, she closed her eyes and fought back the tears that all-too-soon flooded down her face.

Even breathing was burning when she rolled away from the cool touch of _his_ fingertips in the darkness. She wanted to scream at him, but found her voice broken and hoarse before she could even utter his name.

"You promised." She whispered, and as he lay down beside her, Damon did not realise exactly how much damage a broken promise could do.

_**2010**_

"I let her down," He murmured, suddenly pushing himself away from Elena. She sat up straight and clenched her hands into fists, knowing her nails would be cutting ribbons into her flesh.

"No, Damon," The brunette began, going to touch his shoulder or his hand, the way he was curled up, she was not entirely sure. "You didn'-"

"You don't know the half of it, Elena!" His hand came down and her eyes followed his fingers. Her comforter was ripped in half in the time it took to blink. "You don't understand at all!" As he tried to wrench away from her grip again, she held fast, but drew worse than blood.

The moment Elena pulled the black leather band from Damon's wrist was the moment that his world ceased to matter.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries is the property of LJ Smith, who, personally, I think is absolutely awesome. I wish I owned it. Sadly, I got the plot... which, to be honest, I rather like anyway **_

_**Yeah, erm, I'm not Italian, so if any of the translations are wrong, please be constructive and let me know? **_

__

**Enjoy this. If you cry, I'll send you virtual cupcakes.**

* * *

.

_**2010**_

.

There was a dreadful pause, one filled with silence and then a furious scream as Damon dived forward for the skinny leather strap.

"Give it to me!" He roared, and Elena nearly fell from her bed. She would have laughed at his sudden enthusiasm, had his face not distorted into something that looked nothing like Damon. The Damon she knew was kind, and careful, and would not have done something like this.

She withdrew again and let out a whimper as his fingers shot out to grip her wrist. He was not letting go until she released the bracelet, and she was not letting go of the bracelet until he had freed her wrist. They were silent, caught at a standoff until she let out a sigh and let the black leather drop to the mattress.

"You broke it." He hissed, all traces of demon-Damon washed away by the hurt in his voice. He snatched the band up from the fabric and held it between his fingers as though it was a petrified flower, and the petals were about to fall away. "Elena, you... _you_ broke it." His lips parted and his eyes began to water. "I... this was..."

"It was hers, wasn't it?" He nodded, choosing this time to remain silent and in pain as opposed to unleashing any kind of fight or violence upon her. "Damon, I'm sorry," There was no response. He had nothing to say to her, and she did not know how to go on.

"It's not enough." He said quietly, and she knew he was right. Whatever he was holding in his hands – for she did not quite understand the significance of the leather bracelet whose clasp had chosen to snap at such a significant time – was clearly a large part of his past, and she had broken it. She had destroyed it. As he held it between his fingers, the clasp, so neatly rusted, fell from the braided band and the pieces began to unravel. He swallowed and looked down and away. "T-this was..." He stopped, looked at Elena and threw the leather aside. "I don't want it anymore."

"What? Damon... you-" She could not understand the sudden change of heart until she looked into his eyes. "Oh."

It was then that she realised that Francesca meant more to Damon than she could ever have realised, and that Elena herself had just shattered what may have been Damon's last, tangible connection to the girl.

"I don't want it anymore." He repeated, slowly, as though he was talking to an idiot, and Elena simply nodded her acquiescence and let him rise and move away from her, to pick up the teddy bear again.

When he left, that night, Elena picked up the fraying band and slid it into her desk drawer. Matt would know how to fix it, and, she hoped, he would have a piece of _something_ that they could fashion into a clasp. She didn't know how Damon would react to them fixing it, but she knew she had to try.

.

_**Italy, 1990**_

.

He stood in the centre of the marble dancefloor, lacking a partner and feeling all the more confused because of it. Stefan had picked up a girl at the bar, he had seen them dancing together and laughing, and did not yet know that he and Damon were standing in the same room.

"_Scusi,_" The soft voice which disturbed him made him turn around. She was stood at the top of the stairs, frowning a little bit at the man who had just tried to push her down the stairs. "Oh! Hello, _dottore_." Her fingers touched the banister and for a second, Damon could see her fingers dancing across his forearm, a reluctant smile passing across his features as she touched her left wrist with her right hand, fiddling with a small braided leather band wrapped around it. Damon forced himself to look away, distracted by the change of song playing out across the dancefloor.

Her hands were wrapped around the banister again, as she stumbled down to the marble floor and took in her surroundings. This was the year she turned nineteen, and all of these people were here to celebrate it. _Well, that, and her mother's promotion._

As she managed to make her way to the bar, she stumbled over the loafered feet of a young man she did not recognise, apologised and smiled at him. He offered her a 'happy birthday', but spoke in English, so she wasn't _entirely_ sure what he was saying. Nobody had ever said it to her in a language aside from her own, and a part of her was elated, another part entirely upset.

"_Scusi_," She murmured again, picking her way around the guests to the barman and ordering something, _anything_ alcoholic. She didn't even feel well – that had been why she was hiding upstairs – but she just _needed _something different. It was her nineteenth birthday, and she had never had a boyfriend, never been in love.

Damon's eyes had followed another girl through the crowd; he was drawn to her, unfortunately addicted to the colour of her skin and the way her purple dress seemed to shimmer as though she had coated it in glitter.

He rolled his eyes when he realised that she was watching him back, yawning obviously, as though he were terribly bored. He did not expect the girl standing beside her, smaller, and in a white, lacy, off-the-shoulder number – the girl he had seen standing at the top of the stairs, to fold her arms, then throw her hands to her hips and stomp over to him, no doubt making holes in the floor with her big, clumpy high-heels.

"Do you mind not making... a mockery, out of my party?" She gripped his wrist with strength he didn't know such a small person could hold, and he glanced down, noticing the black leather band on her wrist with a small smile. He liked that, a lot. "Were you even invited tonight?"

"Of course," He smirked slightly, tugging at his tie, "How else would I get in?" He nearly laughed aloud at his vampiric in-joke, and even she caught the little smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"Very funny." She said, and though she was trying not to smile, to still be furious at this... _gatecrasher_, for want of a better word, he was clearly someone she could neither take lightly, nor too seriously. _For a second, she was afraid. Then she realised that he was just a guy. _Just. _A. Guy._

"Would you like to dance, Francesca?" A voice disrupted their staring match, and both Damon and Francesca turned to look at their distraction.

"She wouldn't." He retorted, reaching a hand out to girl they were discussing. "You're just a moment too late," Damon smirked at Francesca's would-be-suitor, then down at Francesca, who smiled back up at him and took his hand. He leaned in against her and ran his nose lightly along her jaw, trying with all his might not to bite down there and then. "Good choice, pretty girl."

His words sent shivers down her spine.

"Do you dance?" She retorted as they stood, fixed with his lips pressed against the pulse tracing down her neck, "Or are we going to... stand here?"

"You shouldn't tease, Francesca. It gets you into all sorts of trouble." He retorted, before pulling her out into the throng of people. "You tango, I assume?" He raised an eyebrow in question, but she took it as a challenge.

"What do you take me for?" She grinned, "Of course I tango."

"Excellent." He smirked again, his fingers slowly running down her side as she curled her arm over his shoulder. "Follow my lead, birthday girl."

Faster than she could retort, or argue, his leg was between hers, and she was nearly toppled over backwards by the force of his step. It was strangely... enticing. She glanced up into his face and knew he knew exactly what he was doing. His lips were curved up in a smirk, and his eyes locked with hers almost immediately.

"What's your name?" She asked in a whisper, feeling her face flush darker as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pressed her to him, tightening his grip to dip her almost all the way to the floor.

"Salvatore," He whispered, "Damon Salvatore." She nodded, and he smirked, "Now, _trust me._"

Before she could react, the song reached a climax Francesca had not expected, and in half a breath, she was lifted from her feet, one leg wrapped around her beautiful stranger, the other being gripped tightly at the thigh by his strong, warm hands.

Seemingly as one, the entire room turned to watch the pair dancing together, as he span her around once more and slowly let her down to the floor, his fingers dragging up the outside of her thigh as he set her to the floor. She would have gasped, but she wondered whether she was beyond such a base reaction, as he released her and every sensation disappeared.

She went to argue with him, but his hands were at her waist within a second, pulling her straight back to him.

"Damon-" She breathed, an attempt to question what he was doing, then, as his lips crashed down upon hers, it was no longer a question.

_It always did take two to tango. _

_._

_**2010**_

.

Damon had been sat on the roof of the Boarding House for nearly three hours now, and Stefan had been doing nothing but wonder what his brother could be doing for such a length of time. Elena had called, told him that Damon had paid her a... _surprise_ visit, but she hadn't explained the details.

The elder Salvatore was toying with the idea of controlling his own death, wondering whether the Lapis Lazuli ring which was wrapped around his finger would do any good if he merely held it in his sweating palm. He resolved to try it one day, when he knew he had little left to live for.

_Well,_ he surmised, _he had very little to live for today_, but he did not think he wanted to die _just yet_. His lips curved into a smile as he looked down at the broken stone, set into its silver home, split in half because at the time, he had no clue as to what else he could do.

"Francesca," He whispered into the wind, his knees drawn up to his chest and his fingertips playing with one of the broken terracotta tiles. "_Mi vi auguriamo erano qui_."

The tear tracks that were sliding down his face glistened in the face of the rising sun. There was so much more he had to explain to her, he thought, as he watched the parts of the town that he could see begin to rouse and go about their daily business. He wondered whether she would have liked it in Mystic Falls, then decided that he couldn't, as opposed to wouldn't, ponder such a thing.

Elena stepped out of Bonnie's car as she pulled over outside the Donovan household and knocked on the silent door. She waved to Bonnie as she drove away, and ran a hand through her hair as she held a black, braided leather bracelet out to Matthew James Donovan and asked him whether he knew how to fix it.

Matt nodded, Elena breathed again, Stefan slept, and Damon wished.

The bracelet was all he had.

* * *

.

I'm really enjoying writing this, and would really appreciate it if those who have read this far would drop me a line, a review, or something, even if it's just to say that they're bored, or that they hate it, or my Italian's wrong. Which it probably is. Feel free to correct me, if you speak Italian?

Translations:

_Mi vi auguriamo erano qui_ – I wish you were here


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries is the property of LJ Smith, who, personally, I think is absolutely awesome. I wish I owned it. Sadly, I got the plot... which, to be honest, I rather like anyway **_

_**Yeah, erm, I'm not Italian, so if any of the translations are wrong, please be constructive and let me know? **_

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

**.**

**2010**

.

"I figured out the braid pattern," Matt said as he leaned against the lockers beside Elena's. She looked up at him, his wide smile making her grin back at him. "You said it was Salvatore's?"

"Not Stefan's," She said, grinning up at him, "So, you reckon you'll be able to fix it?"

"I'm gonna have a go tonight, and I'll superglue the ends for now," He shrugged, "I can get a decent clasp at the weekend, if you'd like... you could come with me?" He smiled down at her again, and she felt a little pang of guilt at the fact he was asking her out, not his _actual_ girlfriend.

"Wouldn't Caroline want to come?"

"She's doing something with her mom on Saturday, so I figured I'd get out of her way for then..." He trailed off and smiled at her, "And you want to get it fixed a-sap, right? This way, we could sort it out, and you know what the clasp looked like, right?" He said this all very fast and she was left with a slightly bitter taste in her mouth as she remembered when he had asked her out the first time, almost four years ago. "Elena?" She shook her head back into reality and grinned up at him again.

"Of course, why not?" A pause, "And this way, I can pay for the actual material for once," She grinned.

"You're not paying!" He jumped in, "Why would I make you pay for it?"

"Because... well, because it's not yours. Because I'm doing this to make someone else happy..."

"Will it make you happy?" Matt looked at her and raised an eyebrow quietly. "I don't mind paying." She bit her lip and shook her head.

"It's not for me or you to decide. I'm trying to help Damon get some closure," She admitted as she closed her locker door and looked up into the slightly concerned face of her ex-boyfriend. "I think his past is way more contrived than we originally thought."

"Really?" Matt was a little more than sarcastic, "Whatever made you think that?"

.

_**Italy, 1990**_

.

"It's my favourite," She had whispered as he had wrapped his arms around her and rested his forehead against hers, easily supporting her petite frame in his lap. "And I don't think I could last a week without it." His fingers hadn't stopped playing with it, through all the time he had been talking to her.

"Well," He grinned, tugging at it lightly and opening the clasp with one hand, "You'll have to come get me to get it back." There was a laugh, and suddenly she was sitting on the chair alone, feeling distinctly cold without the warmth of his body pressed against hers. He was standing over her, grinning and holding out the jewellery with a tantalising smile.

She stood, and he danced out of her reach as she tried to grab at it, and he laughed as she tried to run after him, but nearly fell and broke her leg in her ridiculous high heels.

"I'll get you, Salvatore!" She laughed, tugging her shoes off and attempting to make her way through the throng of people to reach him. His fingertips laced with hers as he tried to pull her to him, into his arms, but as she stumbled, barefoot, through the dancefloor, and general rubble that became the aftermath of a party such as this, she trod on a broken glass that nobody had thought to clear up.

The scent of blood immediately made Damon freeze.

"You're bleeding." He hissed, a second before she could even feel the pain. "Francesca, you're... _tua piede sta sanguinando._" He gestured at her foot before biting down on his bottom lip and looking away.

"I..." She glanced down and screwed her eyes up tight, "Can you help me upstairs? I'll need to clean this."

"Okay," He nodded, biting his bottom lip again and trying to work out exactly how quickly he could get in, get out, and run away. "... but, I don't really... like blood." He finished pathetically, hoping it was enough of a cover to get him out of there quickly.

"Oh." She stopped and looked away, "Well, I suppose, that's fine..." His hands shot out to catch her again as she stumbled, and he realised that he was done with making her hop up the stairs. She looked sideways at him and frowned a little bit as he tightened his grip on her and lifted her into his arms. "Damon?"

"I'm carrying you." He muttered simply, "And I'll try to clean up your foot as well," He stuck out his tongue a little way and she smiled back at him, all traces of anger immediately forgotten.

"Okay," She smiled slightly, "Whatever you want." She nodded slightly, and he nodded straight back. As he set her on her bed and crouched down by her foot, the stench of blood overpowered him, and he felt the desire manifesting itself in the pain around his eyes as his face transformed and shifted his eyes into something that surely belonged only to a demon.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, and hoping that would take away all the pain he was feeling everywhere else, the hunger that was burning there in his throat, he let out a growl and began to twist his fingers around the cuts on the sole of her foot.

"There's no glass in it," He murmured, "But it's bleeding quite badly," He ran a finger around the cuts, drawing patterns in the blood and soaking his skin with the crimson liquid. She quickly, and violently tensed, her toes clenching and her body trying to pull away with an impressive jerk. He only held her tighter, however, and stopped her from withdrawing. Without thinking, he lifted his hand and found his bloody finger running along his bottom lip. There was blood dripping down his chin, and a steely, burning gaze lasering into him from above. He glanced up and saw her sitting with her mouth open, stunned and a little disgusted, and dropped his hand to his lap immediately.

"What're you doing, Damon?" She murmured quietly, then, as she wrenched her foot from his grasp, loosened because of his surprise, "Get out!" she drew her foot up against her other thigh, leaving a smear of blood against her bed sheets and screamed the words again, "_Uscite!"_

"_Mi dispiace_!" They had been the first two words he had learnt in Italian, and, as he whispered them again and again, he felt the distinct sense of loss that would come with them for the next eternity. "I couldn't help myself-"

"_Uscite_, Damon, _per favore_."

"Okay," He nodded and took a couple of steps back, leaving her to it as she sat there on her bed, feeling sick and very, very confused.

Stefan found Damon as the party began to simmer down and everyone seemed to be starting to leave. It was past midnight, and he was sitting with a glass of scotch, or something-or-other, in one hand, and in his other, a small leather braid.

_It was a promise he would see her again. _

"What've you got there?" He said, not entirely sure he wanted to know, "Another conquest, another prize?" Stefan's voice was harsh; he didn't seem to understand the weight that Damon had on his shoulders. The girl upstairs was alone and confused, and he wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how – he didn't know at all. "Or did you just steal it?"

"She let me take it." His voice was strangely dead, and he quirked an eyebrow at himself as he tightened his grip on the material. "I'll see her again." He murmured, "I'll come back tomorrow. She hurt her foot, and I couldn't take the blood." He looked up at his brother, whose brow furrowed a little way.

"You... not the girl?" He raised both eyebrows, "But she's nothing like-"

"Like what? She's not _bad _enough for me?" Damon mocked. "I like her." He said softly. Stefan frowned just a little bit, watching him and trying to gauge what was running through his brain. Slowly, as though he were dealing with an animal that was easily spooked, he put an arm around his brother to help him up. And then, for a moment, he just held on.

Damon would come back tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that, because he wasn't exactly one to give up easily.

.

_**2010**_

.

"Elena, what the hell are you doing?" Stefan had found her pondering his brother's mantelpiece with a very dark look on his face. Damon was not on the roof, he was not in the house and he was not, Elena had supposed, within earshot. In fact, she hadn't seen him in three days.

"Going through his things." She replied serenely, "It's really rather interesting... do you know where he got half of this stuff?"

"Italy, I suppose," Stefan replied almost airily, as though he himself were trying to put the place behind him. "I think so, anyway."

"Weren't you there?" She looked up at him and frowned, then picked up a small ring, replacing it suddenly because she had assumed she would have dislodged a hell of a lot of dust from the artefact. She glanced down at her fingers as she pulled away, however, and realised that the only thing on her fingers was a faint smell of polish. Disregarding it, as Stefan took her hand, she looked up at him.

"Do you think we should be in here? He's going to come back and go crazy if anything's out of place..." But his voice was lacking conviction and high on desperation, and they both knew it. "Elena, please..."

"Okay, Stefan, just a second," She pulled away and left her boyfriend standing in the middle of his brother's room as she carried on looking at the trinkets scattered around Damon's fireplace. There were little boxes which she was afraid to open, and a very small notebook that looked as though it were bound shut that she made a mental note to remember.

"_Elena_..." Stefan's voice was a warning now, and she heeded it only because she knew her scent would be extremely noticeable to a honed hunter like Damon.

"Okay!" She followed him out of the room, and listened to the door as the latch clicked into place.

What neither of them realised was that Damon had been sitting on his balcony the entire time. He was quiet, because he had practise at being quiet, and he was still because he was holding his breath. _Elena had been touching Francesca's life._ He had felt a serious sense of fury as he had watched her going through her things, but he realised there was nothing he could do, lest he lose his temper and lose against Stefan.

He could not afford to lose _anything_ again.

* * *

_**I'm really enjoying writing this, and would really appreciate it if those who have read this far would drop me a line, a review, or something, even if it's just to say that they're bored, or that they hate it, or my Italian's wrong. Which it probably is. Feel free to correct me, if you speak Italian?**_

_**Constructive criticism is always welcome!**_

Translations:

_tua piede sta sanguinando__ - Your foot is bleeding_

_Uscite - Get out _

_Mi dispiace - I'm sorry_

_Per favore - please_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer: I was born the year LJ Smith wrote the Vampire Diaries. The only way I could have been THAT awesome would be if I had a time turner. Or was, I don't know... Dr Who? ... So no, I don't own the Vampires, or any recognisable characters. And I certainly don't make a profit from this. I just get a warm glow when you review.**_

_**I also never told you what song they danced to, did I? Hm. Ask me if you really want to know. ; P**_

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

.

_**2010**_

.

Matt found monotony to be something comforting, something relaxing as he sat and watched the game on the TV in the living room. He was holding the leather bracelet between his fingers, attempting to turn it back into a braided mess of goodness, as opposed to the frayed junk that he was currently staring at.

"I am _not_ good at this," He muttered, as he tried to repeat the pattern, watching it go spectacularly wrong, watching it knot, unknot, look ridiculous and pretty much make him hurt all over as he tried to make it look at least a little bit nice.

"_Over under, over under, around the back and under again, _

_Over under, over under, around the front this time and then, _

_Over under, over under, around the back and carry on, _

_Over under, over under, around the front until you're done."_

"What're you doing?" Caroline's voice made him look up and accidentally let go of the ends of the leather, "Oh, my god, you're making a damn friendship bracelet? _You_, of all people!" He looked up at her and quirked an eyebrow.

"Elena broke it, and she wondered if I knew how to fix it." He said simply, knowing that lying to his girlfriend would get him into more trouble than he was probably worth.

"Why isn't Stefan doing it? She could have asked him." Caroline was immediately on edge.

"It's Salvatore's, but he doesn't know that she's trying to fix it, and she figured if she didn't have it, he wouldn't catch her. It's a surprise, I guess." This time, he lied smoothly, trying to keep a straight face. Caroline smiled at him, placated by the untruth and nodded as though she was pleased with his conduct, "But I can't get the damn pattern right." He growled as he looked back down at his hands and shook his head.

"You're probably overcomplicating it," She said, taking a seat beside him, with a small smile on her face, "Pass it here; I've been making these since I was five." Without saying a word, she pulled the leather from his hands and began, with small hands and nimble fingers, to twist and turn the braid into exactly the pattern Matt had sketched in front of him.

"Really?" It was just another thing he did not know about her. She mmm-hmm'd at him, nodding without looking up as she concentrated solidly on the braiding and knotting of the bracelet. Half an hour later, Matt was retrieving the superglue and Caroline was staring at her handiwork with a proud smile on her face. "Thanks, babe," He murmured as he daubed the fastening glue onto the band, then cast the things aside and kissed her full on the mouth.

So what if Elena was always on his mind – did it matter if he would do anything for her? Caroline was there, and she was kind, and good, and honest, and it was all alright for him to take that, because he'd told her Elena would be stuck in his heart until god-knows when, but it was all going to be alright because it seemed like neither of them cared. He was taking second-best, and she was taking what she could, and that symbiosis worked fine for them. It was just enough.

_It was always just enough. _

.

_**Italy, August 1990**_

.

Stefan found his brother lying on his bed the morning after the party, for once alone, with his left arm draped over his eyes and that damned bracelet still clasped in the fingers of his right hand. "Honestly, Damon, what is that... thing?" His brother lazily raised his forearm and opened his eyes to glare daggers at Stefan, before moving his hand from its position of hanging off the bed and glancing at the bracelet. "Brother?"

"Quiet, I'm thinking." He hissed, and for a moment, Stefan wondered whether he was either still very drunk or very hung over, and didn't want any disturbance, or whether he was actually plotting something, both of which, honestly, were a little bit frightening. Damon hmm'd a sigh, and opened his eyes again, "I can't believe Pretty Girl threw me out." He sighed when Stefan's face contorted, "I mean, Francesca. She freaked out because I... Kind of had a bit of a blood-lust-episode..." He sighed again and stared up at Stefan.

"So what?" Stefan shrugged, "Use your powers and make her forget... It really is _that_ easy." He did not see the problem in it, because usually, that would have been Damon's first plan of action.

"I won't deny that I thought about it..." Damon sighed and dropped his hand again, licking his bottom lip - where he could still taste the metallic sweetness of Francesca's blood. "But... I just couldn't, Stef."

"Why not?" As usual, the younger Salvatore brother could not see where his older brother was coming from - though even at the best of times, it was near impossible to understand Damon's twisted sense of logic.

"There was... Something there..." He shrugged again, finally sitting up on his covers, "Like... Well, I don't know what it was like, but it was like something." As an attempt to shake himself of the strange-but-attractive feeling, he shook his head and rolled his shoulders.

"Right," Stefan's answering nod was of someone who had decided that there was no hope for the person sitting beside him to rejoin reality, "Of course."

Across the city, Francesca was still sat in the hospital, where her mother and father had taken her during the night. Her feet had bled more the longer the night had gone on, and her mother had begun to worry for her as her daughter had explained the night's events.

"_Madre_?" Francesca called out to her mother as she returned from the bathroom again, "Are you alright?"

"I suppose," Her mother nodded, "Just tired, and," She smiled and patted her daughter on her head, "Worried about you."

"Don't be," She let out a laugh that sounded just as forced as it felt, "I've just got a bloody foot. I'm fine."

"I saw you dancing with that boy," Her mother smiled, "He looked very... handsome." Her daughter was hardly plain, but then again, she was not a model either. Francesca turned her eyes to her hospital bed, pulling at the watch on her wrist.

"He was, _madre_." She smiled, then looked away, "His name was Damon Salvatore." She ran a hand up her arm, feeling the goosebumps there from simply mentioning his name.

"Well," Her mother said eventually, for she had stiffened at the mention of the name _Salvatore,_ and when her words came out, they were, indeed, forced, "I'm glad you had a nice time. Will you see him again?"

There was silence as Francesca considered it. _She had no way of contacting him. She did not know where he lived. Her last words to him were 'get out'. _Maybe he didn't want to see her again.

"I don't know." Her mother breathed a sigh of relief. "I hope so, though."

_Maybe. _

She had not counted on accidentally leaving her window open during the night around two weeks later. There was silence in her room as she laid there, tears in her eyes because she had just accidentally knocked her foot against her bedpost, and it still hurt a lot, and she sighed loudly as her curtains billowed in the mellow August breeze. In the haze that was half between slumber, and half awake, the delirium that was greatly enhanced by the sticky heat engulfing her, she blinked a couple of times in confusion as a shadow unfurled itself behind the lacy material.

"Hello?" She murmured, unsure of whether she was really seeing what she thought was before her, or whether she was still dreaming.

"Keep your voice down," He replied, and she sighed at the sound of his voice. "It's me."

"You?" She replied. She needed to be sure.

"Damon... Salvatore," He whispered, then... "_Sei arrabbiata con mi?"_ She stopped. She stopped breathing, she stopped everything, because just that sentence in Italian was enough to make her heart judder in her chest.

"Y-you think I'm angry at you?" She managed to stutter as he stepped out of the shadows of her curtains and into the half-light of the room. It was dark, but he could feel where she was, and she could see him silhouetted against the window frame. "I barely know you, how could I be angry?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." He replied simply, "I don't understand why I did what I did," It was quiet as she closed her eyes and remembered exactly how his lips had looked with her blood coating them, red and almost inviting her to kiss them.

Closing her eyes at such a strange sensation, the desire to taste him and her blood mixing with her confusion, she held out her hand to him. There was nothing but fear and adrenaline coursing through her at that moment, and she wanted to tell him to leave, but there was no chance of her doing that – his mere presence was intoxicating her, it was as though he were influencing her without having to say a word.

"So," He whispered, "You... want me to leave, or... can I stay?"

"For a little while," She whispered back, her mouth opening and closing but her eyes remaining shut.

"Can I sit with you?" His hands reached out in a gesture of peace and serenity, "I'm not going to hurt you or anything... I... won't even touch you, if you don't want."

"It's okay," She said, feeling the words stick in her throat, "I don't mind if you sit with me..." _Or if you lay down with me..._

He joined her on the bed, pulling his shoes and jacket off and lying down next to her.

"It's been two weeks, you know." He said into their comfortable silence, two minutes after they had really settled into their silence and he had slowly raised his arm and placed it around her shoulders. She laughed and nodded, "You've lasted two weeks without your bracelet..." He teased quietly, and there was silence for a moment as she gasped, suddenly remembering the braid that had been forgotten only because it was Damon who had been occupying her mind instead. "Oh, so now you remember?" He laughed and she almost launched herself at him to try and get the band back.

"Do you have it?"

"I'm wearing it." He replied simply, holding out his wrist and smiling wildly as she looked into his face and her smile lit up the dark room.

"It looks good on you." She replied; suddenly loathe to take it away from him. He smiled at her again, feeling those muscles in his face tauten for the first time in god knows how long. "Your smile looks good on you too."

He frowned a little bit then, confusion lighting his features instead of a positive reaction.

"You don't smile a lot, do you, Damon?" Reluctantly, even though they both knew she was right, he shook his head, and sighed. "It's not my place to comment," She spoke again, "But you're far more... enticing, when you smile."

His arm tightened around her, and she looked up to see that his gaze was stunned and staring back at her. Damon did not know what to make of the girl in his arms, other than that he wanted to take her away and make her his own for eternity. _That desire had never been so strong before. _He wondered to himself, as she watched him gingerly reach down to her foot and slide his finger across her instep, not even feeling the need to fight the want that was consuming him. _Amore a prima vista._ She considered the concept as she giggled at the ticklish sensation his fingers were causing, then, as he brought his hand up to rest on her thigh, she glanced up at him and saw his expression practically setting her cheeks on fire.

_Desiderio. Amore. Desire. Love... _

The two came together, his lips crashing to hers, her fingers threading into his hair, pulling far too hard, and they did not know what the hell was happening, only that it was far too good, and probably far too fast.

_._

_**2010 **_

_._

"Elena?" Caroline called after her in the hallway as she caught her between her History and English classes. The brunette turned to see her friend waving frantically at her, in an attempt to draw her back down the corridor, "Elena! Matt asked me to let you know that I fixed the braiding."

"Oh! Awesome!" Elena's face broke into her first genuine smile for three days. "Thank you, Caroline." She nodded, "Can you let him know that Saturday will be fine to pick it up?"

"Sure," Caroline nodded, and although part of her was a little bit suspicious, she let it slide in favour of walking arm in arm with one of her best friends to a class she had been looking forward to for at least ten minutes.

_What could she say? She figured their English teacher was __tres__ cute. _

* * *

_**A/N I'm going to say that I'd really appreciate reviews, and to everyone that has reviewed so far, thank you SOSOSOSOSOOO much! I really appreciate them, and they make me write faster, trust me. **_

_**PLEASE continue to review! I will worship all those who do!**_

_**I also actually went ahead and wrote the last chapter to this last night, even though I've not written the inbetweeners just yet. I was in tears, and I would like to warn you all that tissues would be a good buy before then (it'll be a little while yet). **_

Right: An abundance of translations for you now, well... two.

_Sei arrabbiata con mi? – Are you made at me?_

_Amore a prima vista – Love at First sight_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer: Sonnet 18 was written by Shakespeare. The Vampire Diaries was written by LJ Smith. Katla erupted in Iceland Jan-Mar 1991. I don't own any of that... but I am very flattered by both BilliMonroe and ChristineSalvatoreJonas – and, for that matter, everyone else that has reviewed so far!**_

_Ah also don't own "Gravity" By Sara Bareilles. But hm, I'm throwing that one out there too. _

_To quote unexpected items: "And I just CHUNDERED, Everywah!"_

_Oh, and, er, yeah, I've fast forwarded a year, the timeline-flashbacks are out of sync deliberately_

_**Enjoy! **_

X

* * *

.

_**2010**_

.

Saturday could not come fast enough for everyone but Damon. He did not like time passing, because it stretched in front of him and left him spoiling for every kind of fight but one that he should have been trying to start.

He also hated radio programmes. This was mainly because Stefan was stuck so far in the past that Damon sometimes wondered whether he was travelling backwards – even his girlfriend seemed to have come full circle, and damn it if Katherine was not featuring in Damon's thoughts more and more as the days went on.

It was not because he wanted her back; however, if anything, he would be opening that tomb, or stalking her simply to stake her. Multiple times, preferably straight through the heart, the throat and any other angle he could reach, because he did not want _that _kind of woman sticking around in his past to blur the memories of any other.

He curled up in his room, sitting before the fire and feeling cold because it was October, and it was snowing outside, or maybe the loneliness was simply getting to him as he curled up in a blanket, feeling far older and sadder than he ever had before. If his heart could pound, and if his head could reel, he would, most certainly, be sicker than he had ever been in his life, but that had been taken away from him against his will. For once, however, he _wanted _to feel ill. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to shake, to sweat and feel terrible, because that would at least give him reason to _be like this._

When he finally tired of moping, and began to fear the proximity of the fire was causing his unease, he retreated to sit on his bed and took the notebook from the space on his shelf. From the middle of it fell a clearly yellowed page, and Damon sighed at the colour of it – it was fading with use and falling apart because of it too – the thing was nineteen years old, and he had to force himself not to look at it every day because the creases were becoming so ingrained that he was beginning to fear it would disintegrate any day now.

Smiling a little wryly, he unfolded the paper and began to read it – even though he had read it so many times he could dictate the words himself.

"_Damon, _

_Where to begin? Other than telling you that this trip has been fantastic, and that if ever I moved to another country, I would be heading straight for Iceland, there is very little for me to say. The power of the volcanoes, one of which we have been lucky enough to see up-close is terrifying, and part of me wished that you were here to hold me and ensure I did not lean in too close, even if it was simply because that would mean I had your arms wrapped around me, and I've missed that. _

_It's been hard to be away from you for so long – your voice and your smell are the two things I have missed more than anything, especially when you tell me goodnight... and that you love me._

_I love you more than words can say-_"

There was a half-paragraph which was illegible because of water-damage, which he had never been able to read, and the letter went on until the second-to-last line on the page. He always had to fight the burn that appeared at his throat as he read the words she had written, and he stopped at her declaration of love this time, because it was far too raw for him at that point in time. He felt as though everything tangible was fading away from him now, even Elena, probably his only _actual _friend had not spoken to him in nearly five days, he had not had the chance to apologise about his reaction to the bracelet, and...

He felt, and not for the first time in his life, that he did not belong. He missed his Francesca, and he still loved her more than words.

_._

_**Italy, 1991, (June) **_

_._

_So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee._ Damon considered the words as he thumbed through an aging copy of a sonnet collection as he stood at the end of his bed and waited for Francesca to appear. As she opened the bathroom door down the hall and began padding down the hallway, ignoring the noises flowing from Stefan's room, Damon's ears pricked up, and he flung the book aside, pretending he had not spent the past ten minutes pacing his room, simply because he did not like to be apart from her. _Not at all_.

Francesca had taken to staying at the house that Damon and his brother owned, _rented_... _Occupied_ was probably the better word, as her father and mother were rarely home, and she enjoyed the company as she laid on his bed and he distracted her from working by regaling her with the stories he knew from his past, and explaining exactly what Katherine was to him - and why he felt the need to destroy her as she thought she could destroy him.

"I wouldn't leave you, you know." The words had left Francesca's mouth before she could think on one of those nights where she had just finished an essay and listened to Damon's past with a more than concerned ear. "It would hurt too much, for both of us."

"I know," Damon had sing-songed simply, leaning over to rub his nose against her cheek and pull her tight against him. "And you know there's nowhere I would rather be than here, right?" It was a sentiment the pair of them had spent the evening enjoying blissfully, ignoring the world around them and hoping everything would be alright.

As Damon settled himself back down to his bed, waiting for Francesca to appear, he began to ponder the one thing he had been worrying over the entire time he had known the girl that was slowly making her way along the hall – _why the hell was she still there when she knew exactly what he was?_

Within a moment, however, he was roused from his musing by the tiny knock at his door and the vision that followed behind it - his girl, his Francesca, dressed only in a chemise which draped itself so tantalisingly across her form, making him shift and groan in all manner of ways as she stepped slowly - clearly knowing of the effect her clothes were having on him - over to Damon and gracefully crawled onto the covers beside him. Usually, they slept and rested under a sheet in order to keep themselves covered in the heat of an Italian summer, but today was unnaturally cool.

She tucked her head into his arm and closed her eyes, letting out a soft 'hmm' as she curled herself up and wedged herself against him. He licked his lips and kissed the top of her head gently as she rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"You're tired, aren't you?" Damon murmured into her ear, and she nodded against him, "Come here," he pulled her up onto his lap and she grinned stupidly, leaning forward to kiss him as he leaned forward to do the same.

Their lips came together, and Damon felt Francesca's hand slide up his arm and into his hair, pulling on it gently and making him gasp a little as she bit down on his bottom lip. In reply, he groaned, jerked his hips up and slid a hand up her thigh. Ten minutes into their make out session, Damon pulled away and smiled down at his girl. She was flushed, hot and very, very ready.

"You realise that that wasn't what I was about to do, right?" She laughed and nodded, settling herself across his now straining lap and straddling him as she flicked her hair out of the way, bared her neck to him and braced her hands behind him, up against his bedroom wall.

He lowered his lips gently to her neck, licking the spot he was about to bite and blowing gently on it to cool her heated skin. She sighed and let out a giggle before he reached up with his other hand and gently ran his fingers along her jaw with his left hand, cradling her head as she dropped it to the side and let him do exactly what he was designed to do.

As he bit down, her entire body tensed to slide her hips into his, creating friction for Damon that was always hotter than anything that had come before. Her fingers curled into fists in the space between Damon and his headboard, and he felt the movement and exertion send more blood straight through his lips. Eighteen seconds later, he raised his head and pulled her head up to look him in the eyes.

"You need..." Through his blood-induced haze, Damon managed to fling a barely coherent sentence at _his girl's _thoroughly aroused, yet extremely disoriented countenance. There was no point even debating it, Francesca needed Damon to return the favour. His teeth bit down hard on his own wrist and he sucked gently until there was a good enough flow for her to drink from.

"Damon," She whispered, then, "_Grazie,_" Without replying, he pressed his wrist to her mouth and she began to drink, just as he had only moments before. She was almost immediately revitalised, and, as she pulled away to wipe at her lover's mouth with a sordid kind of pleasure, Francesca could not help the smile which accompanied her languid movements.

It was Damon who could not take the teasing. With a flurry of frantic movements, which ended with Damon's dominant side shining through, the pair found themselves laying down once more, Damon holding Francesca still as he disrobed her, item by item, stitch by stitch, and teasing her into oblivion, before releasing her and leaving her to destroy his resolve in much the same way.

.

_**2010**_

.

"_I try to make you see that, You're everything I think I need, here on the ground..."_

Elena tried to avoid the sad music – she honestly did, but October meant that winter was coming, with the slush that was falling in the air and the biting winds that sent snowflakes spiralling around her and gave her the perpetual cold and runny nose.

Sometimes, she envied the unfeeling Damon and the unshakable Stefan. They never seemed to have this trouble, and sometimes, she wished that one of them would turn her, because it would make life for her and Stefan so much easier. It would _be so easy._

Then she pondered Damon for a moment and wondered whether it was as easy as it seemed. Her hands made little fists in her gloves and she stuffed them under the opposite arms in the hopes of keeping herself warm. She didn't like the winter, but she liked the humanity that came with it. _Well_, she liked the _idea_ of the humanity that came with it – Halloween, which was funnier every year, then Thanksgiving and Christmas, which seemed to get duller as you got older.

"Matt!" The blonde was already standing at his car as Elena turned the corner onto his street. "Are you ready to go?"

"I'm always ready to go."

Elena cringed and walked around to the passenger side of Matt's car. She did not know what the future held, but the innuendo laden comments of Matthew Donovan were probably not one of the finer points.

She sighed and climbed into the car, immediately fiddling with the heating as her Ex-Boyfriend climbed in to the driver's side. It was probably inappropriate of her, but as she sat in the passenger's seat and hugged herself as a protection against the still-chilled air of a just warming up car, she couldn't help but wonder whether Damon could feel the cold as well.

_Across town, as he curled up in the armchair by the fire even tighter than he had before, as a precaution against the falling snow outside, Damon Salvatore most definitely felt the chill._

* * *

_A/N: Yeah, er, no Italian this chapter._

_Do review, though! _


	8. Chapter 8

**_Disclaimer: Hello! Yes, the Vampire Diaries? Still not mine. I wish Ian Somerhalder (or failing that, Paul Wesley) was, though. Sadly, he's not._**

**_However, I would like to throw a mention to both Pandora03 and g1rlanachr0n1sm as they have sent me wonderful reviews that made me smile ridiculously widely. Thank you both : )_**

**_If you pull the Book 5 (Nightfall) reference, you will get a teaser which will not be placed anywhere else. You might get one if you review, too..._**

****

_Enjoy!_

* * *

_Across town, as he curled up in the armchair by the fire even tighter than he had before, as a precaution against the falling snow outside, Damon Salvatore most definitely felt the chill._

.

_**2010**_

.

Elena found herself standing at the back of a hardware store staring listlessly at one of the displays of what was either a large part of kinky foreplay or a very, very long piece of bicycle chain, whilst one of the more important men in her life stood at the counter and made vague gestures and comments about the necessary things he would need to make a clasp for a bracelet.

_Why Matt had insisted on making the damn thing from scratch was far beyond Elena's understanding._ She shook her head as she considered that conversation, and filed it away for a later date – where she could use it as a fantastic kind of leverage over his idiocy.

"Elena," She whipped her head around at the familiar voice, expecting it to be Stefan or Damon with the chocolate sounding voice, and almost disappointed at the fact that it was Matt, even though she knew that she was standing with him, as opposed to the Salvatore brothers, "What do you think about-"

She had tuned him out easily, because the words he was saying made no sense at all to her, simple, boring and nothing that she understood, about strength, durability, and pliability, and _oh my god she did not care._

"It's fine, Matt," She said eventually, a long session of static passing through her brain over a few minutes as the men talked, and she simply nodded along, "I've got no idea what I'm looking for here – and you most definitely do." She let the subject drop, and, feeling as though she had just done the feminists of the world a great disservice, she told him that she was going to go across the road to the bookstore and see if she could find something to read while he talked shop with the owner here.

"I'll come get you soon, Elena," He squeezed her shoulder with his huge, warm hand and released her into the October chill.

She stood in the bookstore on her own, her fingers running across the goofy teenaged books that she loved to read. Stefan had never understood the desire, the need that she felt to escape reality, but in her midnight talks with Damon, the ones that she had never thought would make sense, he had told her that he knew what it was like to want to get out of the real world and into a snowglobe of her own design, where she could have whatever she wanted, because her disbelief was gone.

She liked that. She liked to believe in the good of fairytales, and how the bad was always destroyed – how the light beat down the darkness, and how the prince _always, __always_got the girl.

.

_**Italy, 1992 (September)**_

.

"I just... don't know why you have so many books, Francesca." Damon had just been winded by Francesca throwing a hardback copy of something incredibly thick, _possibly War & Peace,_ at his chest. It was a spectacular shot, made all the more fantastic for two reasons – one, because it was nearly midnight, and it was dark both in her bedroom and outside, and two, because he usually would have caught it without a second thought - only today, Francesca was mad at him, and he figured that enduring a little of that, just to make her feel better, would make him a better man... vampire... _creature of darkness_.

He let out a little laugh at that, deciding he liked the term and having to duck almost immediately as another book came sailing at him, whistling through the air and narrowly missing his head. He looked up at Francesca, only to be met with a furious scowl.

"Are you mocking me?" She had straightened up and slapped her hands onto her hips. Damon couldn't help but stare straight at the curves at her waist, led to the location by the movement of her fingertips. She let out a frustrated groan and clicked her fingers to bring him back to the conversation. It took him a couple of seconds, but he was almost immediately ready to argue. "_Well?"_

"You're majoring in _Geography _for god's sake_!_" He gestured at the array of maps and essays that were littered around the various corners and flat surfaces of her room, "You don't even _do _literature..."

"I know!" She retorted, "But you know, I like to read, to do stuff _other _than bore myself stupid by looking at maps and things, because, huh, funnily enough, when you leave to hunt, I get lonely."

"I only leave in the middle of the night. When I know you _can't_ get lonely." He spat back at her, and suddenly her fury was gone, replaced by hurt and fear. When Francesca spoke again, her voice had dropped and she stared at her feet instead of having to speak looking straight into his eyes.

"I can't sleep without you next to me." She admitted, the blush rising up her cheeks and making her soft scent double in intensity in a matter of moments so that Damon could barely breathe without wanting to cross the room in one moment and take her in any way he could have. "I can barely breathe."

Immediately, he felt like an ass. He had supposed that it would not hurt to leave her when she was sleeping, because more often than not, she was off so far that she would not have woken had he sounded an air-raid siren right next to her ear. He had not considered that the loss of warmth, the lack of contact that was so apparent when the two laid down together, would be enough to wake Francesca.

"I... didn't know." The mutual tension in the room had been replaced with those three words. He didn't know that she did not like to sleep alone, and she did not know what to say to calm the expression on his face – one of pain, embarrassment and shame.

He took her words away from her, however, as he reached forward and she found herself wrapped in his arms, his lips pressed against hers, trying to convey everything he could not bring himself to say in that moment.

Francesca had always considered Damon to be a more... _physical _being, preferring to kiss her goodnight, rather than say the words, to hold her protectively in her sleep – _at least when he remained with her –_ to keep his arms around her when she was upset because he didn't know what to say.

She did not expect anything more of him, because, with him being of a supernatural, curious age; she had assumed he was thoroughly set in his strong-yet-silent-type ways. That was why, when he pulled away from her and cupped her face in his hands, she did not expect him to say a word.

_Damon was perpetually full of surprises._

"Marry me? Marry me, Francesca, then we can be together forever, and I promise you... you'll never be lonely again."

Whatever she had been expecting, it definitely was _not _that.

"What?" She blinked twice and felt a surge of heat blast through her body.

"Marry me?" He stopped and looked around the room, "I know I should be down on one knee or something..." He stopped and dropped to the floor, "And I don't have a ring..." He glanced down at his hand and saw the Lapis Lazuli band on his finger, pulling it off without a second thought and looking up into her eyes as he held it up to her.

He had not expected her to be crying.

"Francesca?" He rose up from his knees and wiped her tears away. "Are you-did I do something wrong?" For once in his surprisingly long life, Damon felt thoroughly helpless and completely terrified he had ruined everything.

_He decided that he would begin planning ahead for everything. __Everything. _

"No!" She sniffed heartily and rubbed at her eyes furiously, "You stupid man," Her tiny hands found their way around his neck, pulling him down to her lips, "You don't need to kneel, and you don't need to give me a ring..." She smiled and kissed him slowly again, "Of course I'll marry you."

"I love you." He whispered as he slipped the ring onto her finger, and promptly dropped his forehead to hers as she moved her hand and the ring nearly fell to the floor. "So much."

They both let out a soft laugh and Damon pressed his lips to hers again, running a hand through her hair and holding her upright as he walked the pair of them back to the bed that they shared.

As Damon pressed his hands into the mattress, either side of Francesca's head, he felt a feeling he had not experienced in a while. The soft touch of her lips to his, the not-so-gentle movement of her hands in his hair, her voice, his senses... they all exploded into a single emotion – one that grounded and saved Damon as he held _his_ _girl_ in the darkness.

_Humanity_.

.

.

_**2010**_

.

Matt could see Elena through the glass window of the front of the bookstore. He smiled at her tiny frame, which fit in with pretty much all of the smaller children around her as she tried to reach a book on the top shelf of one of the stacks. It was adorable, and it was silly, but it was ridiculously cute.

Ten minutes later, Matt was holding open the passenger door for Elena, and she climbed in and, once again, began to fiddle with the knobs and dials that controlled the radio and the heating.

"So, when I've fixed this," For Matt had never really been one to beat about the bush, "Are you going to... surprise Salvatore with it, or something?"

Elena didn't reply, mainly because she didn't really know what to say.

"I... haven't thought about it."

"You said it belonged to some girl that Damon knew, right?"

"I... I think she was more than some girl," Though Elena hesitated; she was beginning to think that her words were definitely true. "But yes, essentially, I think that's about it."

"Well, you can't just give it back." Matt, no matter how helpful he was being, would never know the idiocy that was coming out of his mouth as he suggested different ways to hand it back, the final one being probably the least appropriate of all. "Why don't you give it back on their anniversary, or something close to that?" He paused and watched Elena nodding brightly at him, then smiled to himself, "Or, even better, what about the anniversary of day they met?"

Damon liked to make a very, very small distinction between embarrassment and shame. Both of them made the person blush, both of them made you feel bad, and both of them hurt, but he was always sure that shame was more painful.

For instance, as Elena slipped out of Matt's car, falling flat on her backside, she went bright pink and buried her head in her hands in embarrassment, however, as he stood at his bedroom window and stared down at her, Damon felt a heavy sense of shame for laughing out loud at the sight of it, when he knew that she was probably a little bit injured, and he would never admit that he had been watching her.

He also knew that shame was a permanent thing – that he lived with an eternal sense of shame for what he had done – and only one person could absolve him of that humiliation...

_Only_, he reminded himself as he settled in for another night of passionate brooding, _you don't see shame and humiliation as the same thing, do you?_

* * *

_A/N: Reviews and ConCrit are very, very welcome. _

_No Italian in this chapter either. How strange. _


	9. Chapter 9

_**Disclaimer: If I could own any part of all of the Vampire Dairies books, it would be either the final three chapters of book 4, or chapter 2 of book 6. However, I own NONE of TVD, either the books or the TV series. Francesca is my character, however, and my plot is... well, mine. **_

_**To ChristineSalvatoreJonas, Pandora03 and, to g1rlanachr0n1sm, OHMYGOD, I love you. The three of you have managed to put incredible smiles on my face, and gosh, I hope I don't disappoint you guys**_

_**Enjoy! **_

.

* * *

.

.

_**2010**_

.

Elena's butt hurt. There was no more eloquent, nor simple way to put it, although, as Damon glided past her on his way to the freezer, intending to get a fresh pack of donated blood, he did ask her whether her '_gluteus maximus was terribly and irrevocably wounded_'. She wasn't sure whether to be affronted, or to laugh

It would have been funny, except she was really, _really _in pain, and, as she followed Damon through to the kitchen, intending to find an ice pack, she felt the subtle throbbing of a serious bruise that was beginning to form on her backside.

"Hey," After searching in the freezer for something cool to press up against the bruise and finding nothing, Elena felt the need to ask Damon. She wasn't sure whether it was because he might know whether they actually _had _an ice pack, or because she needed someone she could whine to who would just throw her a hilarious line and tell her to get over it – almost as good as an ice pack in her opinion. "Damon?"

He turned from the freezer that the brothers kept their pre-packed blood in and looked up at her, quirking his eyebrows.

"Woah." Elena physically stepped backwards at the sight. Having forgotten to pick up a decent glass to pour the blood into, Damon had decided simply to go with the line that was joined to the package and drink the damn thing like a Capri-Sun, making him look, quite hilariously in Elena's opinion, like an oversized child. There was blood on his lips, and his eyes were dark, heavy lidded. He looked sexy, there was no doubt about it.

"Sorry," Damon muttered through a mouthful of A-Positive, "I needed a drink."

"Hmm," Elena was clearly unconvinced. Damon could practically _see _the disgust rolling from her body in waves.

"Oh, get used to it," He rolled his eyes, "Stefan is a vampire, likelihood is that if you're gonna be together forever, you'll be one too, darling," He smirked again, "What can I do you for, Elena? How's the ass?"

"Hm. I don't know, how are you feeling today, Damon?" She retorted quickly, feeling better almost immediately because of their banter.

"Very, very funny." He smirked and shook his head, turning quickly back to the sachet of blood, "Go wait in the kitchen, I'm dangerous when I've been drinking."

"Yes _Boss_." She was sarcastic as she backed out of the room, aware that she should keep her eyes on Damon at all times, but smiling wildly at the same time – his sarcasm, and his cheeky one-liners had most definitely given her something to think about... aside from that throbbing pain that was currently pounding in her backside.

_Damn. Maybe she did need an ice-pack, after all. _

.

_**Italy, 1992**_

.

It had not been the rosy reunion Francesca had expected. In fact, Damon had been damned ignorant of her existence for the past three hours, and she had been away from him for more than three weeks. She was desperate to tell him how much the trip had made her realise that she loved him, and she wanted to tell him that if she could help it, she was never going to leave again.

Instead of such a romantic evening, he had bought her a quick cafe dinner which was filled with an incredible volume of tense silence, and half of an awkward conversation which Francesca had tried to start, and failed miserably with, and that was it. Nothing dramatic in the airport, nothing romantic... He didn't even kiss her hello. _In short, it was an entirely miserable non-event_.

When they had returned to the Salvatore household, Damon had retreated to the bedroom they shared, and Francesca was left alone with the silence. It did her in quickly and uncomfortably. She paced for a while, trying to find the words that she could use to excuse herself - though she wondered whether Stefan had said something defamatory about their relationship, and Damon had started to rethink the entire thing. She was _not_ one to give up that easily, and Damon should have known it, and that was the only fact which gave her heart with regards to the situation.

It was also the explanation for the confidence she felt as she knocked softly on the door to their mutual bedroom and waited for the storm to unfold.

There was only silence from the room, however, and for a second, Francesca wondered if she had missed his words, or whether he was not even in the room. Pushing the door open, she got her answer. The man she would willingly give her life for was sitting at the foot of the bed, his feet planted on the floor and his head buried in his hands.

At that moment, Francesca neither knew, nor cared about what had happened to him to make him feel like this, only that she needed to make it better, and she would do so in any way she possibly could. Her first thought would be to tell him she loved him, but, for the state of their relationship, she felt it could be considered whiny or obnoxious to think that words of love alone would excuse a fault. Damon was a physical embodiment of love. He did not say the words - and he did not _know_ the words, because, he had admitted, there was no time he had ever truly felt them. He had told her he had not felt this way before, not even with Katherine. So, Francesca did the sensible thing - she tried to _show_ him exactly how she felt.

In almost slow motion, Damon turned his head to look at her and she stepped gracefully and regally towards him, shutting their bedroom door with a click and closing their world off to everyone but them. He did not move as she slowly climbed onto the bed behind him, but tensed as her fingers slid slowly up his spine and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to slowly brush her fingers through his hair.

"What's wrong, Damon?" Her voice was quiet, though the tone carried throughout the room and made him tense up. "Please, tell me..." Another pause and he pulled away from her grip almost violently.

"Leave me alone, Francesca." Damon whispered, his face changing as the anger began to take over, morphing into a shadow of the Damon he tried to be around her. "I don't want to hurt you. Not tonight."

"You don't frighten me, Damon." She whispered back, even though he was across the room and she doubted he would hear her. His face flickered into one of the most terrifying smiles Francesca had ever seen, his eyes dark, barely recognisable as he smirked wildly and made her shiver. Then, she was afraid, she thought as he turned back to her and advanced, stalking toward her as she sat on his bed, sheer and sudden terror paralysing her as he came closer. He was not going to stop.

"Are you afraid?" Damon said in his softest voice, fury lacing his tone.

"No!" She lied, though her voice was clearly giving her thoughts away. He gripped her wrists and pulled her up to her feet. She let out a quiet shriek of surprise, yet felt the busy warmth of her lower body as Damon's hand drew a trail down her arms and to her thigh. He gripped her skin hard, and for a moment, she was sure there would be a bruise, but that was forgotten as he lifted her up and threw her bodily onto the bed.

She bounced twice and slammed her hands down onto the bedspread in order to steady herself, yet he kept on advancing, and truly, she was scared.

"Are. You. _Scared_?" He growled, his hands either side of her hips and slowly crawling up her body.

"You won't hurt me." Francesca murmured confidently, knowing that her words weren't reaching _her_ Damon, but falling upon the ears of a Damon overcome by fury, bloodlust and god knows what else.

"Are you sure?" It was almost a taunt, just asking for trouble, but she nodded her head almost violently and reached her hand up slowly to run her fingertips across his cheeks.

"Yes. I know the real you." Her words stunned him, and he drew away then, rocking back into his heels and running his hands furiously up and down his cheeks in an attempt to dispel the feelings welling up inside him.

It was as though she had reunited him with himself, he looked so full of shame.

"Damon?" She tried again, pulling herself up into a sitting position and stretching her hand out to him slowly, "Talk to me, please?"

"It's not been a good week," he sighed, "Hell, it's not been a good month. I haven't been with you, you've been in a different damn country, and I kept thinking something would happen, and I wouldn't be there... And..." His head fell into his hands again, and he crossed his legs beneath him, "This is going to sound stupid, but I don't get what I want a lot..."

"Damon," Francesca smiled a little condescendingly, starting to think he was teasing her, "You get a lot of the things-"

"No, no! That's not what I mean. I get a lot of Material Things, yes, I can influence people, make them give me things, but..." He stopped, "Emotionally, I've been stuck in a wheel of hatred, fury, boredom... for over a century, and then..." He stopped and reached out to her, his fingers almost snatching at thin air, "and then, there's you."

She didn't quite understand. His fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled her closer. There was no fear coursing through her, only curiosity now, as he gently wrapped his arms around her, his thumbs writing words across the sliver of skin exposed between her pyjama top and shorts. _Ti_ _amo_, _sempre_... They were the only things he could think to say. The words were foreign to him, though his girl, the one sitting before him, had told him them enough; though, as she sat before him, he realised that he felt nothing more than love for her.

It was love, and he knew it now...

"Me?" She murmured, tilting her head back to look at him straight in the eyes.

"You." He whispered, "You make me remember who I am trying to be - the humanity in me." He slowly slid his fingers up her arm again and pulled her lips up to his, breathing slowly, carefully into her mouth as she groaned. "You," he murmured, pressing his forehead to hers, "are... _Everything_."

It made her stop breathing. Every syllable he said aloud, she was sure, was calculated to reveal as much about his feelings as possible - mainly because he was a physical person, and his words were valuable and almost rare. She was also certain, however, that there was more in his head than he would ever let on.

"I-I think I understand," Francesca murmured as Damon pulled her onto his lap and held her so tight she wondered whether her spinning head was due to his intoxicating state, or a simple lack of circulation.

"Not yet," he murmured, slowly pulling at her top, pleading with his eyes for her to pull it over her head. She did as he asked and as he laid her down, gently this time, he whispered things she had never known. "You are stronger than I had thought," he murmured, pressing his lips to her ankle and then looking straight into her eyes, "When I first spoke to you, I thought you would physically try to throw me out."

A bubble of laughter broke free from him as he kissed the back of her calf, then the inside of her knee, and she smiled, groaning because he was so gentle, so kind, and, now that she was back, it seemed, so happy.

"I was so afraid of losing you," he murmured, "that I went back to your house every night until you left the window open..." She giggled again, then rubbed her fingers through his hair, earning a groan straight back. "I love you, Francesca," Damon whispered, before lifting himself onto his knees and settling himself above her. "_Ti amo_... I love you more than life itself."

.

_**2010**_

.

Damon was honestly, _not an idiot. _

He could tell that Elena was up to something, and he probably was neither going to know, nor like the outcome, but that was just Elena. She was always up to something – she had proven that when she had attempted to kill him, she had attempted to... well, there were more than enough times when she had been scheming.

She was trouble, but Damon was not dumb enough to ignore that.

Elena was, however, probably Damon's only friend. Stefan did not like his brother at all – and Damon knew there were valid reasons for this, even if Elena would not accept that as fact, and would attempt to move heaven, hell and possibly most of Mystic Falls in order to reunite them as friends. _He wasn't an idiot. _

_It_ wasn't going to happen.

It wasn't to say that he didn't _want _his brother as his friend, rather than a somewhat estranged relation, of course not. If he had had his way, then his brother would still be one of his best friends. At this stage, he had Elena, and that was only because she was a little bit tangible, and she didn't hate him. _Not yet._ He didn't know how she would react when he explained one of the darker secrets of his past, either, and that thought did frighten him, but no, he was _not _an idiot. He had his plans – he had _always _had his plans, and he was prepared for when that day came.

He was sure – because something in his gut was telling him that there was darkness coming – that it would come out soon, and that plan... Q14 – for he had even numbered them – would need to come into force in that time.

So, when he pulled up a chair and offered to massage Elena's bruise for her, carefully avoiding her direct gaze, she would never know that his smile did not quite reach his eyes.

She did know, however, that no matter how stupid or irritating Damon could be, he was _not _an idiot.

.

.

* * *

X

.

_**A/N. Wahoo. Yes, So, we're in 1992 now, but I'm jumping in time again next chapter. (I feel a little bit like Dr Who...)**_

_**Review?**_

_**Thankyou! **_

_Translations: _

_Ti amo – I love you_

_Sempre – Always_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Disclaimer: Oops! Am I using these characters? Well, my bad... they're not mine, but the property of LJSmith etcetc...**_

_**I think I said I'd update on Wednesday, but I retract that, I am posting today. **_

_**To those who are most awesome, (g1rlanachr0n1sm, pandora03), you do not know the light which your epic reviews bring to my evenings. You make me grin mahooosively. **_

_**Also - if you're into that sort of thing, "Surrender" by The Calling, was the song I wrote part of the Flashback to, find it, use it, do what you will... **_

_**Enjoy... **_

__

**.**

* * *

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

Elena sat next to Stefan on his bed and watched him for a long moment, who was staring into nothingness as he waited for his girlfriend to speak. When the silence finally got to him, he turned to her and quirked an eyebrow as though he was daring her to make a sound.

"Why don't you like Damon?" The words bubbled from her lips as she watched him, and within half a second, she had slammed her hand across her mouth, embarrassed because she seemed to have lost her filter incredibly quickly.

"I-I'm sorry?" Stefan was genuinely stunned by the question, and, for a second he wondered whether Damon had pressured Elena into this. Then, as she repeated the question, slowly, and as though talking to a moron, Stefan's protective instincts kicked in.

"_Why_ don't _you_ like _Damon_?" Elena asked. "Is it because of-"

"Katherine." Stefan finished simply, and far too quickly to be believable. "Yep." He nodded twice and looked elsewhere, avoiding her gaze again. Then, as though he were programmed by a machine, he spoke once more. "Because we fought over Katherine and he doesn't know when to stop."

"He doesn't know when to stop?" Elena had found her way in, and she was not going to let the subject drop, Stefan realised. He cringed and nodded simply, before going through a mental cringe and attempting to find the button which rewound the past twenty minutes.

"No." Instead of the button, he found only empty answers, fuelled by a dirty desire to destroy all the faith Elena had in Damon, simply because nobody seemed to listen when he said that he was dangerous, and nobody seemed to get the idea, no matter how many people he killed. "He doesn't."

"Well, what do you _mean_, Stefan? I can't exactly-"

"Elena, learn when to butt out, will you?" There was a half-moment after the harsh words where Stefan felt a guilt that he had not felt in a long time, and Elena simply stared, stunned, before rising to her feet and folding her arms. "I don't like Damon because of the things he's done. They're not _nice, _Elena, and I'd rather you went about your business blissfully unaware..." He stopped, then looked up at her, "Because there would be a backlash, and I don't want you to get hurt."

Elena considered his words, but, had anyone else been in the room, or watching a record of their conversation, they would most definitely see the fury and schemes within her gaze.

"Of course, Stefan." She nodded, but he should have known he would not let it go.

.

_**Italy, 1993 (June)**_

_**.**_

Today was _the_ day, one of the best days of either of their lives, and yet, as he stood in his bedroom and watched his brother carefully tie his tie so that it rested at its perfect length, Damon Salvatore was afraid.

He would never admit to feeling as such, but there was a definite weight in his stomach that was reaching up to twist in his throat and make him feel as though something were about to explode out of him. He assumed it was fear, because he had never felt this way before - aside from the time that Francesca had thrown him from her house because he had essentially attempted to eat her foot. Then, he had feared that he would never see her again, that she would be too angry at him to even glance in his direction. It had scared him because of the draw he had felt to her tiny frame, the rush of happiness that came with seeing her smile. Today, he was afraid of failing her, and afraid of failing himself.

Francesca, standing in her own bedroom, felt much the same way. Her chest was pounding, eyes a little bit blurred, and her cheeks were flushed to the point that Damon could smell her blood from the next room. She did not see the emotion as fear, however, more as an amalgamation of excitement, adrenaline and pure joy to make her feel so nauseous, so afraid, but unable to wipe the smile from her face.

It was a given that she would wear white, and, as Damon left his room in an attempt to catch a glimpse of her before the ceremony, he was sure he had seen the dress she would be wearing hanging from her wardrobe door somewhere before. It had stunned him into inertia momentarily because it was just like the first dress he had seen her wear - a damn-white-lacy-off-the-shoulder-thing, which, now that he knew what it looked like, was giving him ideas of how to tearing it from her body so he could ravage her, and ravage her well.

Francesca heard the movement in the hallway and called out to him in an attempt to keep the day traditional.

"Damon! I know you're there! Keep moving. I don't want to see you until later on!" Though she had wanted to sound stern, she could not help the giggle which came from her mouth as she spoke.

"Awh, Francesca!" As she had turned away from the door, Damon had appeared in front of her, grinning wildly as his vampire speed stunned her and made her jump about six inches into the air.

She landed neatly in his arms as she came down, sighing as he pressed his lips to hers and made her far too warm.

"Oh, what I could do with you," he mused, running a fingertip up and down her bare arm, then, with a sterner tone, "Why aren't you dressed yet? You know I get... _dangerous_ when you're in lingerie..."

As if to prove his point, he pulled her closer and ran his fingertips under the band of her bra, almost tearing it, before pulling the lobe of her ear between his teeth and gently biting down. It took all of Francesca's strength not to leap into his arms and wrap her legs around his hips, but she resisted, pulling away with a soft moan as Damon sent her that devilish smirk and stepped back from her. She was hot now, stifled even though the windows were open.

"I wasn't dressed because I had a funny feeling you would do that."

"Ha-ha." Damon deadpanned, before pulling her closer and sliding his hand over her shoulders and to the curve of her backside. "You are _so_ beautiful," he whispered before he pulled her in for another searing kiss.

"You're going to destroy me," Francesca replied, running her hands through his hair.

"Eh," Damon shrugged jovially, "just giving you something to smile about as you walk down the aisle."

He had to sprint out of the room at vampire speed as she attempted to throw her shoes at him.

"I love you!" He called as he pulled the door closed behind him, a satisfied smirk on his face as he turned to see Stefan shaking his head at him, even though he was grinning wildly and laughing with Damon – whose sense of fear had simply dissipated into one huge smile and a very wide grin.

"Congratulations, brother," Stefan smirked, running a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair, "It's your big day."

"_Our_ big day, Stefan." He smiled and raised his hand to the door he had just stepped through, "_Ours_."

.

They stood together at the altar, and Damon smirked as he raised his hand and looked down at the ring which sat upon it. He had had the Lapis Lazuli which had been set into the ring removed and broken into two, in order to make the ring which was seconds away from being slipped onto Francesca's finger.

"_Io, __Damon Salvatore, __prendo te, __Francesca Luch__,  
come mia sposa e prometto di esserti fedele sempre,  
nella gioia e nel dolore, nella salute e nella malattia,  
e di amarti e onorarti tutti i giorni della mia vita."_

Francesca was in tears. It was nothing beyond that, simple joy spilling over and leaving her unable to speak. Damon slid his hands up her arms to her shoulders and rubbed his thumbs gently across her cheeks, wiping the tears away.

"_Ti amo,_" He whispered, then, "_Sempre," _And her lips parted in a sob as she nearly fell to her knees and he caught her in his arms, holding her to him.

.

"_Bacio! Bacio!" _Though the wedding was a small affair, there were enough people to yell for them to kiss, to have them on their feet and holding each other until Francesca could barely breathe, and Damon was seconds away from lifting his girl... his _wife _from the floor and carrying her away so that they could be alone.

The music was loud as they rose with the song to have their first dance. Damon held his hand out to her, and she quietly smiled, looking more beautiful than she ever had before. Slowly, he wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her against him, holding her tight and watching her smile as they locked eyes.

"Io non ti lascerò mai da solo," He whispered, "Not in a million years."

"Me neither." She whispered, "I couldn't..."

Her fingertips wrapped around his palm, gripping his fingers tight and holding him there, feeling the coolness of his skin, and the gentle grip of his fingers back against hers. Their rings clinked together and she bit her bottom lip, unable to stop smiling as she bowed her head and leaned against his chest as he led her around the dancefloor and kissed her intermittently.

"I love you so much," He whispered as the song ended and they were left staring at each other, neither of them sure whether they should sit, stand or what. Damon's lips pressed against hers as Stefan appeared at his shoulder and tapped it lightly, holding his jacket open to prove he was no threat.

"May I cut in?"

"Of course," Though Damon appeared reluctant to leave his bride.

The pair of them shifted to touch hands quickly, a small reminder of their immediate connection, before Damon pulled away and handed Francesca to Stefan.

"He thinks the world of you."

Neither was sure as to who had spoken first. Stefan wished to speak, but as the gentleman, he allowed Francesca to begin.

"He would never tell you to your face, of course," She gave him a small smirk which Stefan recognised as one of Damon's trademark expressions, before she continued, "But you can tell. When he speaks of the things you've done, the ideas you have – the things you _want _to do... he thinks you are incredible." There was a pause as Stefan span her away and back to him again, "Stupid as hell, but incredible."

"He has never been so happy." He whispered to his brother's bride, "I am so sure that he does not even _see _anybody else – women could throw themselves at him naked, but he would wade through them to get to you." She let out a light laugh, and Damon caught her eye from across the room, smiling lightly as she blew him a kiss. Stefan watched as his brother mimed catching it, a ridiculously large grin on his face, "I think his heart just stopped." He had never seen his brother acting so... _goofy_. There was no other word for it.

"No, no..." She smiled as she saw Damon wink at her and offer her an almost heartbreaking smile. Her breath hitched, though she looked almost unflappable to a human, "The heart that stopped? Mine."

.

_**2010**_

.

Matt Donovan was not usually so addicted to working late at school. He liked to get things done, and get them out of the way, that was true, but his teachers had noticed that for the past week or so, he had been in and out of football practise – _understandable because his knee had been playing him around – _and spending more and more time in the ridiculously small high school Metal Shop. When anybody asked why, his responses were vague, and sometimes, one of his teachers caught a glimpse of a black bracelet that looked half-finished but wasn't. No, it most definitely was nearing completion – and on the twelfth day, Matt looked upon it, and decided he was done.

It wasn't exactly the same, but it worked.

In the centre of town, more than three miles from the cemetery, and about a half-mile from the boarding house, Bonnie Bennett was sitting with her head in her hands, looking up at her Grams and whimpering about the darkness that was coming. She said she couldn't stand it, and that she wanted it to go.

"It won't go until it's come, Bonnie," Grams murmured, handing her granddaughter a bottle of something that didn't look suitable for such a small teenager. "Drink up, it'll help with the headache." Through her half-filled eyes, Bonnie eyed the bottle sceptically, then looked up at her grandmother. She had never steered her wrong, but this looked like a new level of disgusting.

"Are you sure?"

"It'll help, I promise." And, trusting in the kindly smile which was looking back at her, Bonnie uncorked the bottle and took a deep draw from it.

Blinking rapidly to disperse the sudden feeling of burning in her throat, but feeling the headache definitely receding, at least a little bit, Bonnie shut her eyes and waited for the darkness to clear.

It was replaced by sunlight. Lots and lots of searing, headache inducing, burning sunlight.

.

.

.

.

* * *

**A/N: Bahahahaha! I hope you liked that, and it was just unexpected enough...**

**Also, Goofy Damon ftw!**

**Review?**

**Xxxx**

**.**

**Translations**

**"_Io, __Damon Salvatore, __prendo te, __Francesca Luch__, come mia sposa e prometto di esserti fedele sempre, nella gioia e nel dolore, nella salute e nella malattia, e di amarti e onorarti tutti i giorni della mia vita." - - _I, _Damon Salvatore_, take you, _Francesca Luch_, as my wife and promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in pain, in health and in sickness, and to love you and every day honour you, for the rest of my life.**

**Bacio! Bacio! – Kiss! Kiss!**

**Io non ti lascerò mai da solo – I wouldn't leave you.**


	11. Chapter 11

_**Disclaimer: Pfft, me? Own this? Naaah.**_

_**Pandora03, BilliMonroe and G1rlanachr0n1sm make me smile beyond belief. You all deserve temporary Goofy Damon rental. I'll figure out a way to send him to you virtually... I promise.**_

__

**Enjoy!**

* * *

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

Matt met Elena on the sidewalk that led the high school parking lot. Both of them were silent, both of them awkward as they stood together, watching the cars move around and everybody go about their daily business.

Elena was tired. She wanted to tell Matt she worried about Stefan, because the things he was hiding were definitely stronger and more frightening than she had first thought, and Damon – _Oh, Damon! _He was in more trouble than she had ever assumed he could be in. There was far more to his past than either brother had dared to let on. As she stood beside Matt, faithful, human Matt, her fingertips locked with his as she folded her arms and let out a quiet sniff of sadness.

He sighed and looked at her. She was not the Elena who had come through the beginning of this year with a smile on her face. Well, it was not a... _smile_... but some kind of semblance of it. It was gone now, however, replaced by the slim press of her lips in a tight line and the small, furious crease in her forehead which made her look so... tired.

It was not a good look on Elena, Matt decided. She had too many things which laid upon her, and her slow movements were some which Matt worried about – he was not sure whether it was late nights, school work or something more sinister. As ever, however, Matt didn't say a word. He simply observed.

He didn't like getting on the bad side of anyone, and, as he held out the skinny bracelet to Elena, hoping she would take it, and with it, some of her sadness would melt away, he felt a certain kind of heaviness in the air. It was not humidity, per-se, but it was something akin to it – thick and sultry in the air and tiring him as he watched Elena smile at him, mouth a 'thank you' and press her lips to his cheek.

"Matty, you're a saviour among men," She smiled and for a moment, Matt saw a level of happiness cross her face that he had not seen in a while.

As he climbed back into his car to search for his jacket – it was December, it was cold – he risked a glance back at his ex-girlfriend and sighed. She was smiling, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

It told him one thing – Elena was scared.

.

_**Italy, 1993 (February)**_

.

Francesca had a filthy habit of leaving her bedroom window open. Damon had a filthy habit of ducking into said bedroom window in the middle of the night.

_Their actions balanced out rather well. _

As he considered announcing his presence - after finding it slightly more difficult to get through the window this time because his fingers had slipped on a dewy slickness which had appeared due to it being rather close to dawn, he noticed that her bathroom door was open, and the soft, damp mist which was curling out of it left him sure that she was in the shower. It decided him. He would surprise her.

Damon was always, always sure and silent, shrugging his leather jacket from his shoulders and laying it across her bed as he stepped carefully toward her bathroom door. Francesca's lips curved into a small smile as the chink of light which lifted to her eyes from her bedroom widened in the soft light of the bathroom, and there was a near-silent creak as the door opened, almost drowned out by the patter of the shower spray.

She knew he would come, and she could not help but tease him for it, trusting that his natural curiosity and his serious desire to see her naked - which was proven because every time he saw her, he tried to get her in bed - would bring him to the door across the room.

He moved like a cat, pausing only to lean against the wall and fold his arms nonchalantly, the smile spreading across his face one of the larger ones of recent times as he stared through the misted glass divider. He watched as she stretched up under the spray of water, and found whatever it was that she was looking for – _ah, shampoo_ – as he toed his shoes and socks off and smirked.

_He thought she had no idea._

Francesca knew. She _always_ knew when he was close to her- he sent shivers up her spine and made the room a little warmer with whatever power he seemed to have.

So, she did what she had to do, and it took no longer than usual, her fingers moving slowly with the flannel and the soap, and Damon's breathing shallowing as he watched her shadow through the glass. Until everything went wrong, simply because she leaned forward to pick up the conditioner, with shampoo still in her hair.

It ran into her eyes and she felt the immediate sting of tears and the embarrassed burn of a failed, miserable attempt at seduction.

"Shit!" She gasped, rubbing frantically at her eyes to dispel the shampoo and making her even more wound up.

Damon lifted his hands from their position behind his back, and he straightened up, suddenly worried that something was ridiculously wrong. Francesca was frustrated, he could feel it, but he wondered whether she would like a surprise to go with that irritation, or whether she would attempt to throw something at him. _He didn't like her mad at him_.

As time went on, and she continued to curse, the words sounding painfully good to his ears, he realised that it probably couldn't get any worse than the aftermath of her finding out he had been spying on her. So, heartened by the fact he was facing having beauty products thrown at him whichever direction he chose, he smiled to himself and stepped towards the glass door to the shower, slowly pulling it back in order to see her with his own eyes.

She was gorgeous.

"Damon! _Uscite, per favore,"_ She whispered as she turned to him, entirely ashamed of the mess of hair and foam and _everything _about her at that moment.

"No, no." He said, stepping into the shower proper. "_Pretty girl_, calm down," He slowly ran a hand down her bare back, feeling water following the path of his fingers. It was only at that point that he realised that he was still fully dressed, his trousers darkening as the water spray hit him, and the dark grey of his shirt simply darkened. "Here," He crouched to pick up the flannel, then took her hand and pulled her against him.

She soaked him through almost immediately, but her fresh scent and small smile made it all worthwhile as he ran his hand under the spray and slowly ran the cloth over her face, dispersing the remnants of the soap from her hair and eyes and making it... _everything_ better.

She blinked up at him and grinned again as she slid her fingers around his wrist to hold his hand. He couldn't help but smile as he reached behind her and turned the water off, pressing her back into the tiles as he grinned.

"You," He murmured as he reached around for a towel, "Are positively _sinful_."

He thrust the towel at her and then, as her fingertips touched it, thought better of it, throwing it around her shoulders and wrapping it around her, before pulling her to him, and lifting her from her feet.

"Hey! Hey! _Mettimi giù_!" She yelped, before he shook his head and wrapped his arms around her waist. She had no other option but to grip on with her ankles and he groaned as she tightened her grip on him. He only lifted her higher, then, as she laughed and he pressed his lips to hers, he slowly let her slide down his hips until her feet were on the floor.

"Hello, _pretty_ _girl_," He whispered as she pulled away from him and twisted her fingers into his. He pulled her close to him again and pressed another, this time feather light kiss against her lips.

They felt whole again as soon as they tumbled into each other. His fingers tightened in her damp, tangled hair, and they fused their lips together into something that burned, twisted and exploded within them.

It was dawn when Damon found a brush and slowly sat Francesca up so that she was resting between his legs, shreds of lingerie adorning her body.

"Do you know how much this stuff costs?" She gestured at the tatters of her bra and the pathetic volume of lace that was now flapping from the elastic on her hips, "I should not let you near me when I'm in lingerie."

"You seemed to enjoy it," He laughed, and she did the same as he gently put the brush to a section of her hair and started running it down the length.

She sighed happily as his fingers combed through it, following the comb, and, with every movement he made, Damon considered the future.

"Francesca..." He said eventually, looking down at her and slowly running his hands up and down her shoulders, "I need to talk to you." She heard '_we need to talk', _and it scared her.

She immediately feared for their relationship. In fact, those words had terrified her. Everything within her tightened and she wrapped her hands around herself, staring back at him, scared and shaking as Damon slowly wrapped his arms around her. For once, his touch did not calm her, and she remained trembling for the seconds it took for Damon to kiss her, once, twice, _until she was breathless._

"Pretty girl..." He murmured, still running his fingers through her hair, "Don't be sad." A small movement as she twitched, instinctively leaning her head back so Damon had access to her neck, so he could bite down as many times as he wished, but... he leaned back and pulled away. "This is a good thing, I think." Even he was shaking now, as the words he desperately wanted to say left him, evaporated before they could leave his lips.

"W-what do you want to say then... if it's good?" She was afraid to even ask, but she had to speak her thoughts aloud.

"I was thinking," He mused, running a fingertip up and down her bare wrist, tracing a vein slowly and carefully, "I was thinking _way _into the future... what's going to happen with... _us._" Then, just as slowly, he dropped his lips to her neck and pressed a gentle kiss there.

It was then she realised what he had meant, and he smiled straight back at her as her fingertips slid over his ring and she looked back up at him. She had said forever.

_Forever it would most definitely be. _

_._

_**2010**_

_**.**_

Darkness. Bonnie hated it, now, because it was taking over everything in Mystic Falls. It was everywhere and it was all encompassing, and it was still giving her a headache.

It was deepest black over the Boarding House, where Elena spent most of her time with Stefan, and where the other Salvatore – Damon, resided, and it was even darker over the high school – to the point where Bonnie was now spending her time on her own, ditching class to sit in the cemetery with her textbooks and her essays, doing work there, instead of even daring to work in the halls of Mystic Falls High.

The darkness was growing, in a definitely palpable way, as well, with shadows forming everywhere, heavy and dishonourable, thick and filled with innumerable, horrible feelings. Bonnie was, however, sure that the searing light which always followed would be one which would destroy everything that was dark in the town and make the area a brighter place.

On the third Thursday before the New Year, early in the morning, two strange things took place. First, Bonnie's place in the cemetery was usurped by the dark spectre of Damon Salvatore, who was slowly making his way around the graves and stooping to look at them every-so-often.

"What're you doing here?" Bonnie felt the darkness shift closer to them and she recoiled from Damon's outstretched words. "I'm not gonna hurt you... Bonnie? Or is it Connie?" He quirked his eyebrow and felt the shudder as she realised exactly _what_ he was. She let out a soft whimper and he frowned a little bit. "I give you my word."

There was silence as he watched her and she nodded simply, believing him.

The second strange occurrence was the small, golden aura which Bonnie could see around Damon. This was weird simply because it was there one moment, as he laid back and looked up at the sky, but as he blinked twice and looked back at her, Damon was coloured with grey. It had been like a shot of tequila bursting through a night of vodka cocktails – short and... curious.

"What?" He asked as she dared to lift her eyes from the light emanating from him and lock their gazes.

"You're glowing." She returned, then, realising how that would sound, "I mean, your aura-"

"I know what you _mean_," He retorted, "I'm not stupid." Another pause, "But seriously, I _can't_ glow. I'm just a little bit dark right now."

"It'll get better." Bonnie murmured without thinking, and then she stared at him. "What you're going to do... it's right. When you know it's going to happen, know it's right."

"O-_kay_," Damon nodded slightly, retreating into sarcasm because like it or not, Bonnie's psychic abilities threatened him, "Whatever you say, crazy lady."

For the rest of the time they both spent in the cemetery, neither of them said a word.

.

.

.

.

* * *

_**A/N: Yes, er, review?**_

_**Translation: **_

_**Mettimi giù! – Put me down!**_

_**Uscite, Per favore – get out, please!**_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Disclaimer: No "real" novel would have a chapter this short. I clearly have no concept of producing proper chapters. LJ Smith wrote the Vampire Diaries, and I think the CW made it into a TV show? ITV2 show it over here. **_

_**I know this is very fucking short, very fucking cryptic and very fucking transitional, and I apologise for the language used in this sentence, but I'm kinda pre-empting the irritation you guys will feel. **_

_**Hope this throws you right into the mix**_

_**Enjoy!**_

_**.**_

__

**.**

* * *

_**.**_

_**2010**_

.

.

Bonnie was anything but concerned about Damon. She had seen his future, and it was as pretty as his black-and-gold, shining, dangerous-yet-pretty aura. _Pretty something, _she mused, and it caused a smile to split across her face. She grinned down at Damon, who was sitting at her feet, telling her each of the answers to all of the pieces of homework she had set around her.

"What're you smiling about?" He frowned up at her, "You know, if you're going to sit on the angel again tomorrow, then you're not wearing a skirt. It's not nice to see your Hello Kitty panties, Connie."

"It's Bonnie." She retorted, feeling a flush against her cheeks and knowing that he had succeeded in his attempts to distract and disturb her, make her feel awkward and then irritate her to the point that she would fight him.

_Damon liked girls with a little bit of fight. _

"Whatever your name is," He muttered, "Quit flashing. Hello Kitty wasn't cute when they first brought it out, and it's not cute plastered all over your pixie's derriere."

_Francesca had always hated Hello Kitty. _

"Well, _so_-_rry_." Bonnie huffed and went to jump down from the wingtip of the angel, then thought better of it as she overbalanced and fell a little to the side. "Help!" She was clinging on tight with her legs as she tried to keep herself upright.

"What's wrong?" Damon was now looking anywhere but at the way she was holding herself up, "Oh, God, don't _die_." He sighed, "You're about the only person I like around here."

"Well," She muttered again, "I'm sorry if this isn't convenient for you, but-"

"Oh, shut up, you sarcastic witch."

In three steps, Damon had jumped up onto the top of the Angel, and was holding his hands out to Bonnie.

"Grab on," He muttered, "I haven't got all day."

"Yes you do," She retorted just as quickly, "I thought you were only hanging around here because I _tolerate_ you."

"Very funny. You know, I feel like I should leave you here to think about what you've done, don't you?"

"I don't find that very funny, Damon." She replied, still afraid of loosening her grip and falling the nine or ten feet to the floor, "I don't find that funny at all."

"I do." He sing-songed the words as he watched her for a moment, before leaning over and detangling Bonnie from the angel's wing. Gripping her wrist and almost flinging her toward him, he swiftly took the same three steps back down to the grass of the cemetery before placing her on the floor and sitting back down with his back to the angel.

Bonnie stared back at him with her mouth wide open and her arms crossed across her chest. Damon unsuccessfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"You are _so _weird, you know that?"

"Yep." He nodded, and couldn't help but smile at the thought.

.

.

_**Italy, 1993, February**_

.

.

"You want to change me?" Francesca's smile was hesitant, but very, very certain.

"I said forever," Damon whispered, pressing his lips to her neck, "I never go back on my word." He stopped and pulled back to look at her. "But only as long as you're sure. I need you to be sure."

"Of course, she whispered without hesitation. We said forever."

There wasn't even a waver in her voice as she looked up at him, beaming, and ran her finger down a vein in her arm unconsciously.

"So, how do we do this?" She tilted her head in a businesslike manner, and Damon let out a short laugh because it was just so _cute_ to see her so confident about something she did not even begin to understand.

"You drink from me, then you die, then you drink from a human... It's complex." He let out a short laugh, "but easy if you know how." She nodded, feeling more aware of the second part of the process than anything else he had said.

"I die?" She asked nervously, "... As in, I... _Die_?"

"Yep, die as in... Dead." And Damon caught the glance of fear in her eyes. "But don't worry... It'll be painless, I promise you. I'll make sure of it." He leaned down and ran a hand through her hair gently, "I'd never let anything bad happen to you."

There had been a very, very long list of options that Damon had given her - quick deaths, all of them, some of them more painful than others, some of them faster, all of them frightening, at least to Francesca.

"I'll be there every step of the way," Damon had whispered quietly, holding her hand and toying with her ring as he usually did when he sat with her. "_Io non ti lascerò mai da solo."_

"_Arriverà un momento che te ne pentirai,"_ she laughed, but with her words, Damon's jovial mood began to recede.

"Don't say that. When we do this... We'll have _forever_ together." His hand was holding hers tightly, and as she settled on the method which would soon secure her change, she felt that she needed that support.

She was becoming a part of _his_ world, and this would make it permanent. It would make it... _everything_ perfect.

"That one." She said simply, searching for the bright red pen that she so liked to draw with. Quickly, she circled it, and Damon smiled down at her as he wrapped himself around her and twisted a few strands of her hair between his fingers.

"I like it," he laughed lightly, "Theatrical, fast and very us."

"Us?" Francesca laughed, although she did desperately want to mention that their relationship was a little more like erotic asphyxiation - a desperate need, a desire and just a little bit of fear. Well, actually, no. It wasn't asphyxiation, no. It was far closer to a massive feeling of relief.

"When do you want to...?" Damon left the option to her, and she let her shoulders shrug. She didn't know. She did, however, know that she wanted it, and she wanted it a lot.

"Well," she said, far more confidently than she felt, "I'm going to be twenty two in two months, and you're already twenty fourish," she said with a smile, "Let me catch up to you a little way first?"

"September, then?" Damon smiled as she nodded, "I'll make it a night you'll never forget."

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

"Stefan?"

Silence in the darkness of his bedroom. He was gone for the night, most likely hunting for some animal out there somewhere. Elena stretched and looked around in the shadows of the night, before pacing around the bedroom to find her slippers and put them back on.

_It was cold in December. _

"Who's that?" Damon's voice startled her, "Oh, just _you_." He muttered as he glanced up and saw her, even though to her, his body was simply a voice in the darkness.

"Damon, where's Stefan?"

"He left a little while ago." There was a smirk playing about his face, Elena realised as she flipped the switch to turn a lamp on, "We had a..." Another pause in the conversation, "Subtle disagreement?"

"About?"

"Oh, he wouldn't want you to know." It was as though an electric current passed through Damon, his smile grew so large in less than a second and Elena gripped the arm of the sofa tightly. "So, I'll tell you all about _Saint Stefan, _and his merry bag of tricks."

"What?"

"Sorry, that was overly poetic, wasn't it?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, Elena," He raised his eyebrows, and she sat forward, suddenly intrigued by the words flowing from my mouth, "What I didn't know about Francesca would probably fit into a very, very small pocketbook, but her family? They had a lot of things they never, ever told anyone, and that was a little bit of a problem."

"Why?"

"Well, let's just say that _Madre_ _Luch_ knew more about Saint Stefan than she really cared to let on, and he didn't remember a thing."

"What?"

But Damon would leave it to Stefan to explain. He rose from his seat and stepped from the room as though he had simply finished speaking to her, though in his chest, he felt the hesitation which came from his conscience, and told him to go back and tell her everything.

Of course, he never could resist causing trouble.

.

.

* * *

.

.

**A/N: The next chapter will be up Monday, the one after that Wednesday...**

**Review? **

**Translations: **

"_**Io non ti lascerò mai da solo." – I wouldn't leave you.**_

"_**Arriverà un momento che te ne pentirai," – One day, you might have to. **_

"_**Madre" – Mother (Meant to be read in the sort of 'Mama Luch' way)**_


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: No. No. No. No. No. I don't own any of it. Apart from a WAY convoluted storyline. **

**It's a little bit early, but I'm feeling good, considering I'm four days from my birthday : )**

**Enjoy!**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**.**

* * *

**Italy, 1992 (The night of Francesca's Mother's Death)**

**.**

Damon heard everything. Every single word, and for a moment, he felt as though he was about to lose everything that mattered. Mama Luch was about to throw Damon to the dogs - and he didn't even have any idea why.

Then his mind clicked to the only other Salvatore he knew. Stefan.

Damon knew that Stefan had gone a little bit crazy in the early seventies, and he knew that more than once, Stefan had turned to Lexi, who had then been backpacking with someone or other, in order to seek help with curbing his bloodlust. But he hadn't bothered to ask him what was going on... There was a short moment where Damon considered whether he could get back from their place to Francesca before she returned, and, when he was sure he could, he took a running leap at the window and almost dived through it, somersaulting through the air and landing on his feet.

_If anyone had seen him, there would definitely have been applause._

"Stefan!" Silence greeted Damon's furious call, "Brother! Here, _now_!"

"I'm coming, I'm _coming_!" Stefan's soft voice was barely audible through the house; he seemed so far away, so Damon followed it to its source, right up in the eaves of the attic.

In half a second, Damon was stood beside the spot where Stefan was just levering himself in through the skylight and brushing himself free of all the moss and grime that accompanied taking a seat on the roof tiles.

"What do _you_ want?" If Stefan had stopped to consider his question, he would have seen the fury in Damon's face, dark eyes blacker than black, eyebrows narrowed so close together that it appeared that they would meet in the middle, an expression which, in combination, screamed _danger_! to anyone who looked at him the wrong way.

Without even pausing to take a breath, the elder of the Salvatore brothers had his younger, weaker brother pinned against the wall, demonic expression firmly in place.

"What did you do to Juliet Luch's family?" He spoke through gritted teeth, but the name itself made no impression on the brother currently struggling to breathe.

"Who?"

"Francesca's mother, you fool!"

"I didn't know anybody named Luch before Francesca..." Stefan paused, his face darkening with a little smile, "and you don't let me close enough to her to get to know _her_, either!"

"You're a liar!" It was the most emotional Stefan had seen Damon in the past century and a half, his eyes blazing, his teeth almost snapping and he was nearly snarling too.

_Stefan was nearly afraid of his brother._

"The nineteen seventies," Damon started, pulling away and allowing his brother to drop to the floor like a rag doll, "Where did you stay?"

"Milan." Stefan was still gasping for air as he massaged his neck, "You know that! You were in Rome, doing god knows what!"

"That's where her family's from... Milan..." Damon was speaking more to himself, but Stefan was still not listening, "You... You must have known her family... Beforehand..." He shook his head and looked up at his brother.

"I didn't _do_ anything!" Though in his heart, Stefan knew something had gone wrong.

"Francesca's mother is currently telling her daughter – my _girlfriend –_ that she shouldn't be with me! Because I'll leave her! Because I'll hurt her and I don't know what the hell's brought it on! I can't be painted as the bad guy here, Stefan!" He stopped and looked at his brother, painfully aware of the semi-smirk which was almost glittering on Saint Stefan's face in the moonlight.

"Why not, Damon? It's not as if you've ever been the good guy before." The words made Damon ache, almost immediately, as though they had awakened the ever-present pain in his chest and drawn it to the surface in a bruise of seriously damaging proportions.

"Forget you, _brother_." Damon managed the words before he lifted the smirking Stefan from his feet and threw him along the length of the attic until he hit the wall and smashed through the window.

Sprinting through the streets, painfully aware of how long it was taking for him to pound the pavements, Damon made his way back to the Luch household, and straight back up into Francesca's window.

She was already there, lying asleep in her bed.

_He had broken his word._

His breaths sharpened as though he had run a mile, and he let out a groan.

"_Mi dispiace,"_ Damon whispered sadly as he climbed in beside her, slowly wrapping his arm around her waist in an attempt to anchor him back to reality.

In a moment of pure and simple rejection, she rolled away from him, and, in a voice he wished never to hear again, so filled with hurt and pain and honest anguish, whispered words which shattered the glass around his heart.

"You promised."

**.**

**.**

**1971**

.

_She had no idea it would be this good. He was kind, he was sweet and he was honest, but oh, _God, _she didn't know how good it could feel. _

_Annabelle Luch had been fucked, and she had been fucked but good. _

_._

**19. 04. 1971**

Dear diary,

His name is Stefan Salvatore, and he is... _perfect._ I will admit, he has one fatal flaw, but his pride is nothing compared to the beauty I see. He has startling hair, and his face is just so... angular. At first, I did not understand how he could be so perfect, and he could be so wonderful all at once, but he told me.

My lover is a _vampire_. My sister will not believe it – she has already got herself a husband, and she is pregnant with her first daughter already, she has decided to call her Francesca after _mama_, but that is beside the point.

Stefan can walk in the day – he is not like Dracula, he says, because he has a ring which will protect him from the rays of the sun. It is Lapis Lazuli, and I think it is beautiful – it is just as beautiful as he is, with his big eyes and sparkling smile.

.

**30. 06. 1971**

Dear Diary,

Strange things happen when you are not expecting them to, do they not? Stefan bit me today. He said it was 'just to try', but as soon as he had done it, he was unable to stop, and it took me all of my strength to fight him off.

It scared me. It was as though he was crazy, fighting so hard and then he was attached to me, as though he were a leech, and I couldn't fight it, because I... I didn't want to.

It was most worrying. But then again, I would not change it for a thing. He was considerate when he had calmed down, healing me and making me feel so good as he laid next to me and laughed about the entire thing.

**.**

**01. 07. 1971**

He says he is leaving me.

_I cannot allow him to leave!_

Why would he leave when I am alright with the blood? I do not mind if he bites me, if he wants to change me, then so be it, it is not my place to stop him – I love him, I honestly do. It hurts me to know he wants to leave – does he not...

Does he love me less than I had assumed? I don't like this feeling, one of neglect or hurt, I'm not sure which it is, but it hurts. So much.

I do not want him to leave...

.

.

_Stefan Salvatore left town three nights after Annabelle wrote her final entry in her diary, and as she laid in her bed and watched the ceiling swim in front of her, she wondered whether it was her inadequacies which had caused him to leave. _

_Was she too quiet? Was she too loud, too fat, too clingy? Or was he just using her to get his twisted, sick kicks, and then leaving her because he had had his fill of her body, her brains, and of __**her**__, pure and simple? _

_She did not know, and she did not have any desire to find out. It sickened her, and it made her feel rather ill. _

_._

_On the fourth of August, nineteen-seventy-one, Annabelle Moretti was discovered in the Moretti family home in Seri, with her femoral artery severed. An investigation into this death found that the wound appeared to be self-inflicted, as blood, and the fingerprints of the young woman in question, were found on a kitchen knife in the same room, along with several different blood spatter patterns across the bedroom sheets and the walls which appear to correlate with this ruling._

.

Juliet Luch, neé Moretti, walked into her sister's bedroom with the intent to show her the new booties she had bought for her soon-to-be-born daughter. Instead, she was greeted by the most sickening sight that was possible to see.

Blood had been spattered up the walls, and it appeared to be coloured black in the sunlight as it dried. There was a kitchen knife in the bedspread, glinting in the setting sun and making Juliet want to vomit, it was _horrible, _and with the heat of August, it began to smell.

She gagged as she forced herself to take steps toward the body and shake her sister violently. Nothing, and as a pregnant woman, it was not easy to feel the baby kicking as the mother retched over the carpet, her sister lying dead in a pool of her own blood, knife in one hand, diary in the other.

Juliet Luch picked up the diary which laid in her sisters hands, and began to scream.

.

.

_**Italy, 1992, The Night of Juliet Luch's Passing.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

"_Mia madre aveva esplicitamente ragione su di te,"_ She whispered, even though she didn't particularly want to share what she had just heard with anyone. It was Damon, however, and no matter how furious she was with him, she would not stay that way – it was almost impossible.

"I know," He whispered back to her, running his fingers through her hair. She tensed, but relaxed as he pulled his hand away, "But, understand, I had to know what he did."

Francesca stiffened in the darkness and quirked an eyebrow in question, even though she knew he would not be able to see her expression.

"What who did?"

"It wasn't me," He whispered, slowly drawing her hair back, away from her ear so he could murmur the words she would hear clearly and hopefully feel the same way. "I promise you, it was not me."

"What? Damon, you're making no sense," and then, as though the words had slotted into place like the pieces of a complex jigsaw, she let out a gasp. "How much did you hear?"

"Everything," He whispered honestly, knowing now was not the time to be keeping secrets, "but I did... I didn't know how you would react, whether you'd be mad at me... Your mother is a convincing  
woman."

"Was." Francesca whispered as she turned over to face him, burying herself in his arms, her face pressed into his chest, and let out a soft wail as she felt the fresh tears begin to drip down her face.

"Was? No-" Damon felt worse, as though somebody had cut him and left him to bleed to death, "no..."

"Yes..." She clutched at the flannel shirt he was wearing and nearly pulled all of the buttons away, don't leave me.

"No, I won't." He whispered simply, "On my life, I will stay with you."

"No lies," Francesca murmured, "Damon, please, do not be lying..."

"I am not lying." He forced the words out of a tight throat and looked straight into her eyes, "I will _not_ leave you, my pretty girl." His thumb found the soft curve of her cheek, wiped away her tears and tilted her head up to look at him. "Not now, not ever."

"You can't promise that," She whispered, but he shook his head.

"Trust me, please. I very, very rarely break my word."

_You did tonight. _The words remained unspoken, but it was obviously hanging in the air between them. It was painful to see, and it hurt Damon to watch _his girl_ with tears in her eyes, clinging to him almost for dear life.

_He would not leave her until they knew what had happened. _

No.

_He would not leave her at all. _

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

* * *

_**A/N: Early, yes, but damn, I hope you liked it?**_

_**Review?**_

_**Translations:**_

"_**Mi Dispiace" – I'm sorry (hell, Damon's using this a lot, eh?)**_

"_**Mia madre aveva esplicitamente ragione su di te" – My mother was right about you (which, of course, she maybe a little bit was.)**_


	14. Chapter 14

_**Disclaimer: Naww, I don't own any of the Vampire Diaries as a TVseries, or as a bookseries. In fact, before I get ahead of myself, I've only seen up to episode 20, possibly my fave ep. Of the series. But then again, that'll change, I know. **_

_**Enjoy this. **_

_**To G1irlanachr0n1sm, Pandora03 and Mouse555 – LOVE YOU ALL. You are so lovely, kind, sweet and funny, and you never cease to make me smile. **_

__

**Probably no update until Monday, because it's my birthday tomorrow, and I don't want to remember the weekend.**

* * *

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

"_Shawty is an eenie-meenie-miney-mo lover..."_

Elena hated the song, but Damon hated it more, and it was her only weapon in attempting to get him to tell her everything about what Stefan had done to Francesca. She had exhausted her other angles – from withholding the information she had from Caroline, to attempting to blackmail him with things Matt had seen him doing in the backyard – mainly mundane things, but Damon was not one to be pleased about being seen to be helpful.

"Will you turn it up?" Damon laughed, realising exactly what she was trying to do, "It's not annoying yet!" She stared straight back at him, not quite believing that he was so happy about her choice of music. He waltzed away with a smile on his face, shaking his hips in quite the ridiculous way.

_Damon did not like Justin Bieber. _

"That's not possible." She muttered as she turned the music down and looked over at the doorway which Damon had left through. The room appeared to be empty, but, as she turned and went to sit back down at the table in the sitting room, she found he was right behind her.

"Hello, Elena." He said, and she jumped about a foot in the air.

"Don't _do _that."

"Why?" He smirked and shook his hips again to an invisible beat, "Just waiting for you to pick another _tune of the century_. Please, put on some Taylor Swift."

"Oh, thank god." He quirked an eyebrow, "I was actually starting to think you liked him." She had hoped he wouldn't have a comeback for that, but with a smirk, Damon pulled a book from nowhere and held it up, just out of her reach.

"For that," Damon smirked again, teasing Elena with the book in his fingers, "I don't think you deserve to have your questions answered."

She quickly realised what the book was, a diary, and jolted to grab it out of his hands, momentarily forgetting Damon's ridiculous vampire speed.

"Asshole!" She called after him, as he practically danced up the stairs out of her reach and left her standing at the bottom of them, watching him laugh long and loud.

When she picked up her backpack to go home, saying goodnight to Stefan, she felt a heavy weight in the main bag itself. Hoping against hope, as soon as she got home, she pulled it from her back and looked straight into it.

"_Elena, Don't torture me with Bieber again. It won't work next time. Damon._

_P.S. Be careful with the black book. It was hers."_

She pulled out a set of two diaries and the little black book that Damon kept on his mantelpiece. She swallowed as she looked at it, and set that one aside for another time.

Damon sat in the tree outside of Elena's window until late into the middle of the night, and watched her read how Saint Stefan nearly destroyed his brother's life.

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**Italy, 1992. **_

_**.**_

_**.**_

Damon liked Francesca in black. He liked her in any colour, but black was his favourite, and thus, he very much liked her body when it was clad, very simply, in shadows. If she was to be his Princess of Darkness, she would be clad in dark colours a lot of the time, so he was pleased to see it suited her.

He was not pleased, however, about the situation which had led to her wearing such a striking colour.

"I can't do this," Francesca whispered, looking up at him and blinking furiously, "I cannot even begin to do this. She turned away from him and went to go into the bathroom, to put on a mask of makeup even the tears could not wash off.

Damon caught her arms at the elbow before she could even take two steps to get there.

"You can't walk away, Francesca." His voice was slow, smooth and honestly rather charming, and Francesca would have assumed he was trying to compel her, had she not known that that wouldn't work between them. She fingered the bracelet around her wrist as she glanced down at her feet, sighing.

"I can't go out there without _you_." She murmured slowly, "You've been keeping me upright for a week... How am I supposed to-?"

"I can't go, and you know it," Damon whispered, "She would not have wanted me there - you know that..."

For after they had been through her things, and found Aunt Annabelle's diary, they knew why Francesca's mother was distinctly anti-Damon.

"I know," Francesca murmured, "But God," she put her head in her hands and shook it violently, so that her hair fell from the bun she had drawn it in. "It's difficult, Damon."

"Believe me," he lifted her into his lap, and she noted that, as usual, he was dressed smartly in tailored chinos and a black shirt, even though he would not be attending Francesca's mother's funeral. "Believe me, pretty girl, I know."

His fingers nimbly pulled her hair free from its tangled mess and lightly ran his fingers through it. When he released her, he thought she looked more stunning than she had before she had begun to cry.

"You are strong," he whispered, brushing his fingers down her cheek, "You are beautiful, and your mother... She would be proud." Damon felt like he should do something to ease her pain, but he did not know what. If only... "Francesca?" She lifted her eyes to meet his and when he ran his hand through her hair again, he slowly tilted her lips up so that he could gently kiss her fears away.

It should have been strange to feel her tears on his cheeks, but Damon really could not bring himself to care. He was breathing slowly, and her fingers were tightening around his forearms, clinging on for dear life. He pulled away seconds later and ran his fingertips under her eyes, pressing the tears away.

"You will be incredible, and I will only be two miles away." She knew that. Her head slowly dropped to her chest, and Damon tilted it back up, so that she was looking straight into his eyes. A gentle hand ran across his, and Damon smiled as she did the same. "It will be alright."

And if it isn't, he thought, then I will be close enough to know.

.

As she was stood, slowly making her way through the words she had set in front of her, she could sense him.

For a moment, as she glanced up at the group of people gathered for this funeral, the sea of darkness and the candles, beacons of light, she thought it was Damon, there to support her, there to hold her upright even without his touch.

She knew and respected his decision to remain at the house, preparing for later on, however, and she would not force him to come. She would not force him into anything.

_No, it was most definitely not Damon. _A moment later, she risked a glance up from her notes and was sent reeling.

_He could not be here._

Startled, and hoping it was nothing more than a terrible dream or delusion, Francesca's eyes darted to every possible exit and she wondered whether she could get to Damon before _he_ could catch her. Nobody lived here. It had been easy for him to get in. And yet, Francesca, a mere human, was afraid of not being able to leave.

She settled her eyes back onto the paper in front of her and found that she began to trip over her words as the pace of her speech increased, panic offsetting her words and sending a beacon out to anyone and everyone who could have been listening.

Damon, no matter how far away he was, no matter how irrelevant the problem seemed, was always, _always_ listening out for Francesca. He sensed her panic like a wave of static from an FM radio, his bloated amounts of Power, and the fact that he had her blood in his system amplifying it so that the worry and signal began to buzz and beat upon his brain, and he launched himself out of the routine of his pacing, and straight toward the church.

He made it in two minutes, flagging at the last moment because he could smell Stefan. His scent was strong, bloated with a power that was almost vibrating through the church and putting every human into the shade.

_He shouldn't have been there._

Damon let out a sigh, shaking his head and hoping that Stefan hadn't done anything yet, that he had arrived in time, in-keeping with his I'll-just-stroll-in-and-save-the-day attitude which had served him well over the years.

He had never been entirely sure of the layout of the traditional church, only sure of the main doors, altar and aisle, but there were always other entrances. He appeared in the smallest room to the side of the church in seconds, after casing the best place to come in. It was hard to get into the main building without having a door creak, or people turn to look at him, but there was sufficient distraction because the service was ending, and Francesca, the last speaker, shaking on her feet, had to be caught by one of the men in the front pews as her legs gave out beneath her.

Immediately, Damon felt a surge of jealousy, of honest protectiveness, and he fought everything within him that was telling him to run to _his girl_ and steal her away.

That urge was quelled within a half second because of the scream which exploded through the church. For half a moment, Damon thought the windows would shatter.

"Pensa mai di lasciarci in pace?" It was Francesca's grandmother. She knew about Stefan's existence. She had lost a daughter because of him. "Non hai fatto abbastanza!" Her hands were shaking, and Damon feared a second death at this funeral. He pushed through the people doing nothing but staring between her and Stefan and decided that now was the time for action.

Swiftly, and acting as though he had seen everything that had occurred in the past few hours, Damon tackled Stefan to the floor, pinning him and then scrambling him to his feet and pulling his stunned form outside. As Damon pressed his brother up against the solid brick walls of the church, gripping him at the neck and at his left wrist, threatening to pull the Lapis Ring from his finger, he heard the breath of Francesca's words from the doors of the church, clearly searching for him in the grounds.

"Damon Salvatore, you truly are my saviour." Her words seemed to calm him, bring him back to reality, but, in order to impress his point just a little bit further, Damon pressed his fingers into Stefan's throat harshly, and felt him gag, then, as he released him, watched him drop to the floor.

"You know what I'll do to you if you hurt any of her family again," Damon's words were a clear promise, no need for a threat. Stefan nodded.

"I just came to apologise." He managed out if a tight throat, "if I had known what was going to happen, I would have... Compelled her to forget, or... I don't know-"

"Maybe you shouldn't have compelled her in the first place, Brother." Damon said simply, stepping smartly back and away.

"I-I was wrong to do that, but you cannot say that you've never been tempted to do it to Francesca-" But Damon held up a hand to silence Stefan.

"No." Damon said simply, "I haven't."

..

It was dark by the time that Francesca returned to Damon. He had been standing in her room, waiting for her since the ruckus in the cemetery that afternoon.

She would not have denied, if she had been asked, that she was a little afraid of Damon, but she stood by her earlier words, that Damon was her saviour, and those thoughts clearly showed in the slow smile which spread upon her face at the sight of her lover as he stood at her window and slowly turned to look at her.

He took deep breaths as she sat and watched him move across the room, stepping slowly and carefully towards her, holding out his hand.

"I drew you a bath," he whispered as her fingertips sent a shock of electricity straight through him and made his heart kick start.

"Thank you." She murmured, and he slowly pulled her into his arms, gripping her tight and holding her until she pulled away. "I won't be long..."

"Don't be," he whispered, before kissing her lightly on the temple and sitting down on her bed, pulling his jacket from his shoulders and taking off his shoes. As he heard her sigh and sink into the bath, he felt the heat from her body increase in intensity and the corners of his mouth twitched a little way into a smile.

She would need him tonight, and he was definitely not going to deny her _that_.

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

"_Dearest Damon, _

_This will probably be the last time I write to you while we are apart, because I intend to come to you as soon as this postcard is posted. I do not like flying, and I do not like being away from you, though, as the second will be cancelled out by the first in this case, I think I can cope with the flying for now. I have missed you, and I will love you always, Francesca."_

Elena had stopped reading the black book after she had found the first postcard, and then the small photo which accompanied it. Such a happy moment – where Damon was genuinely smiling, dressed in a morning suit with a girl who could only be Francesca wrapped in his arms, his chin pressed into the top of her head beside a white veil tucked into a bun.

_A veil? But Damon wasn't married? _

The image was ingrained into her brain, and she spent her time wondering what else she would discover if she had simply asked Damon, but at the moment, there was just one more pressing issue.

She stopped reading there because she had pored over the other two diaries – one belonging to Annabelle Moretti, and the other belonging to one Juliet Luch – who, she had gathered, was Francesca's mother. The joyous tone of the book which Damon treasured seemed to directly oppose the hatred and venom which was harboured in Juliet's diary – all directed at the one person Elena could not hate in the world – _Stefan Salvatore. _

But then she had read Annabelle's diary. She had pieced everything together, and then Stefan had just upped and left her, no reasoning, no anything... and, by the sounds of it, he had compelled her into complying with his wishes for sex, blood and god knows what else.

He had left her, and she had been so distraught that she had killed herself just two weeks before her niece, before Francesca had been born. Stefan had done this to a family which did not understand, and he had come back... for the funeral of one of the three people on earth who would never forgive him – and Damon had had to intervene.

When Stefan came to pick Elena up for school that morning, she had already gone.

.

.

.

* * *

_**A/N: Love Me, Hate Me, Bite Me, Compel Me? Review?**_

_**xxx**_

**_Translations: _**

**_Non hai fatto abbastanza? - Haven't you done enough?_**

**_Pensa mai di lasciarci in pace? - Will you ever leave us alone?_**


	15. Chapter 15

_**Disclaimer: No. Nononono. I don't own it, and I am sobering up right now. It's going out time in half an hour. **_

_**Enjoy. Review, and please, please hate me. It only begins to get worse from here.**_

**_To those who didn't expect me to post this late today, They stopped me from drinking at 3.45 pm, so I am sober enough to post and reply to reviews now. _**

**_Oh, yay_**

_**Mouse, Pandora, G1rlanachr0nism, you are my ladies. You make me smile. (Jesus, am I ever drunk.)**_

__

**.**

* * *

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

"Stefan?" As Elena sat down in his bedroom and held the diary in her hands, she looked up at him and realised the horrific look on his face. "Please, say... something?"

"I don't think there's anything else to say." He said softly, looking away from Elena and up at the ceiling. "You've clearly seen everything in that diary, and you've made up your mind."

The words rang around in Elena's head which sounded so familiar and yet so different in her head. When Damon had said them to her, a very long time ago, when Stefan had told her all about Katherine – _at least, as all about Katherine as Stefan would ever dare mention, carefully keeping the secret that he had forced Damon into a turning he had not been willing to go through _– and she had made swift judgements about him.

They sounded too different, this time, though. They sounded wrong and uncomfortable coming from Stefan's lips, as though he fully expected her to tell him that _no, she still loved him, and no, this must all have been a lie. _

Elena wondered how much of Stefan's mind was that damn conceited that he would dare to make this all about him. None of this was about him, not at this point. It was time that he realised that the things he did – because _he _did them for _himself, _rather than to protect Annabelle, or her family – could not be apologised away, or made right, because he deliberately deceived her.

"You compelled her," Elena said, instead of starting to comfort Stefan. "It's obvious."

"Is it?" Stefan asked softly, "How would you know?"

"She writes these things... and then there're notes in the side, telling her that she doesn't remember them the night afterwards. The fact that she allowed you to bite her, didn't ask anything of you..." Elena trailed off, feeling massively awkward and very, very ill.

"Well, maybe I couldn't help myself." Stefan tried, sounding petulant and childish – like a version of Damon that was slowly losing control. "Maybe she asked for it."

"Maybe she loved you." Elena had taken a long time to get her own head around that idea – that somebody else could have or want Stefan, and that he would simply up and leave them without even appearing to return that love.

"We'll never know." Stefan said, and Elena, unable to take such an arrogance, such a deceit, shook her head and got up from the bed, thrust the diary into Stefan's hands and walked away, intending to go home, to find the black book and make herself smile more with Damon's colourful history.

Stefan, on the other hand, kept his eyes on the book, until the agony of anticipation got to him, and he forced himself to open it, to read about the hell he had created.

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**Italy, 1993 – Francesca's 22**__**nd**__** Birthday. **_

_**.**_

_**.**_

Francesca liked her birthday. Two years ago, it had brought her Damon, and this year, it had brought her Damon once again, only this time, she was married to him, and he was lying in their bed beside her as she woke up, his face only inches from hers as he stared hard at her features.

He looked as though he was trying to memorise every part of her face, as his eyes flickered left, right and all over the place, taking in every millimetre of her freckles, the way her tan changed slightly, deepened on the sharpness of her cheekbones. She blinked her eyes closed again as he lifted his fingertips to her bottom lip, ran his thumb across it and then lowered his mouth to her own, kissing her hard and pushing her down, onto her back as he clambered across her bed to straddle her, running his hands up and down her sides as he dragged his tongue up the side of her neck, making her gasp, moan and whimper underneath him.

"Positively sinful." He whispered, before pulling back and rubbing his hand across her bare ribs again. "Go and shower."

"Excuse me?" Hazy with sleep, Francesca was still unsure whether that incredible good-morning-kiss had been a dream, and now _this?_

"I said, go and shower." Damon was smiling widely – not even smirking as Francesca had been expecting, "I'm taking you away for a day."

"What?" She raised her eyebrows this time, looking at him with wide and curious eyes, "But my-"

"Your father said that we had best be back before tomorrow, he said something about a surprise party?" There was that ridiculous smirk on Damon's face again, and he grabbed Francesca around the waist again, "Oh, dear me, I think I've ruined it."

They laughed raucously for a while, lying together, kissing and touching for the better part of half an hour, before Damon got impatient again and grabbed her around the hips, pulling her up and threatening to spank her unless she got a move on.

"That sounds like a promise," She giggled, and he simply shook his head, touching her bottom lip again and kissing her lightly as he sprinted to the bathroom with her in his arms. "Damn you, Damon!" She was laughing lightly as he stripped her slowly, touching every inch of her bare skin and sending goosebumps exploding across her skin.

His fingertips pressed against the soft skin of her stomach and he pressed his lips against the space between her breasts, tasting pure _Francesca_ as his tongue traced up to brush against her skin.

"Shower. I have something special planned for today."

She nodded once against him, and then forced herself to step away and into the shower, drawing the glass curtain closed behind her.

.

Something special turned out to be the most beautiful picnic Francesca had ever experienced.

Damon had thought of everything, from champagne, to the chequered picnic blanket and a camera to capture everything that they did that day – from Francesca's face as Damon pulled his Ferrari over at a vineyard and told her to wait there, bringing a vintage wine out ten minutes later – one that was exactly the same age as her.

"This must have cost-"

"It's worth it." He whispered, "Besides, it's a good wine." He winked brightly and took in the girl leaning against his Ferrari as though she owned it. _In a way, she did, because she owned him, but that was beside the point. _"You look stunning," He whispered as he stood between her legs to press her against both him and the car, "Incredibly beautiful."

"Not as good as you," She replied, the dark blush against her skin making him smile ever wider.

"Let's go, before I do something dangerous, and wholly inappropriate." He murmured, pressing his lips to her exposed collarbones as she gasped, dropping her head back at the sensation.

They moved on quickly, sitting down at a restaurant in a small village for coffee before Damon's incredible shortage of patience meant that they were haring up a hillside, pulling over with gusto before Francesca could even comprehend what was going on.

It was around five o'clock, but Francesca was hungry already, for she and Damon had been messing around, laughing and travelling out here all day. She had consumed the better part of half a bottle of wine, and was most definitely at ease lying beside Damon as he began to pull the bottle of champagne out of the basket.

"Are we eating now?" She asked softly, and Damon nodded, leaning over her with a gentle smile.

"Are you hungry?" He countered, and she nodded lightly, feeling a little closer to starving.

Damon smiled and held his hand out to her, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand as he pulled her to sit facing him, both of them with their legs crossed.

"Do you trust me?" He whispered, pulling a black strip of silk from his back pocket and holding it out to her to show her what it was.

"Of course," She whispered, then, "With my life."

Her lips curved into a smile, and he grinned back at her, keeping his fingers wrapped around hers as he covered her eyes with the black silk.

Shivering with anticipation, Francesca let out a little gasp as Damon pressed his lips first against her cheek, then her forehead, then finally against her lips as he fished around in the picnic basket for what he was looking for.

"Ready?" Damon murmured as he pulled away, "Because I've got it all here."

"Okay," She breathed out and nodded as Damon lifted her hips and placed her lightly on his lap.

"Take your guesses when you're ready," He murmured softly, rubbing the first slice of fruit against her lips. They parted with the gloss of the juice against them, and Damon could barely keep himself from following the path of the fruit as Francesca swallowed slowly and ran her tongue across her bottom lip.

"Apple." She whispered quietly, and Damon responded with a very gentle kiss to her hand. "I get a reward?" She said, louder this time.

"Indeed you do. You were, of course, one hundred percent correct. Next one?"

"Umm-hmm." She nodded brightly, and this time, as his thumb brushed her bottom lip, she let out a soft groan. It was almost too much for her, knowing that he was so close she could feel his heat rushing against every part of her, but that he was too far away to _do _anything about it.

Her lips parted, and she immediately knew it was a strawberry – and a damn juicy one at that, because she tasted the sweet tang of the sugar he had dipped it in alongside the juice of the fruit, and felt it drip down her chin mere seconds before Damon had attached his lips to the afflicted area and licked the taste away.

"Strawb-ungh." She couldn't continue because within a second, his lips were pressed against hers and the blindfold was all askew. His hands were everywhere, fingers pressing against every curve, under her dress, lips attacking any bare skin he could find.

She practically fell backwards, hearing her glass of champagne collapse with a quiet _clink_ to the blanket, but there was no sudden rush of liquid – Damon's fingertips had quickly grabbed the drink and righted it, swirling his finger in the glass and bringing it to her lips as he groaned again, pressing his hips closer to her, pulling her back to him harder.

Damon pulled away from her first, holding a hand up to still her protests.

"Shut your eyes," He whispered, "And trust me."

"Of course," She replied.

There was silence as Damon found the chocolate spread. He had intended to dip the strawberries into it, but his restraint had been sorely tested already, and he was so close to dragging her back to the Ferrari and destroying its interior that he needed to satisfy the pair of them before it got to that point.

Slowly, as he leaned back against her, he used his index finger to scoop up the now warm and slightly runny paste, brushing it first straight down the column of her neck, and then, with a second finger full, straight across her lips. They parted immediately, and slowly, he felt her tongue start to taste every part of the chocolate, and every part of his skin. He noted that, as the spread was almost liquid, it had left a thin trail across her cheek and compulsively, he followed it with gentle nips, before lowering his lips down to her neck. The line of chocolate had cooled a little against her skin, so she gasped as his hot breath ghosted against her pulse point, and his tongue started to clean the path back up to her lips.

It was immediately too much for Damon. He knew he needed the blood that was beating against the chocolate, and Francesca could feel that tension too. Her head dropped back and her back arched so that she was pushing herself up to Damon's lips. He pushed her back down with a gentle hand and forced himself to look up at her.

"It's your birthday," He whispered, still hovering over her, still feeling painfully alive, "This should be about you."

"It will be," She murmured, "Just make sure," Her fingers found his wrist and gripped tight, "Make sure you _share_." He nodded, lifting his fingers to her lips.

Damon decided, as he took his first gulp of sweet and soft blood, mixed with the chocolate that remained on her skin, that his favourite taste was _her_.

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

Damon dropped his head back and looked up at Elena over the arm of the sofa as she came downstairs.

"I hope you talked to the _Saint_," He said softly, "And that you got more out of him than I ever could."

Elena was never sure what to say around Damon, especially in his rare moments of sincerity, but very swiftly, his moment of melancholy dissolved and he was smirking again.

"Still, his attitude was getting boring, being all broody all the time... I'd relish the chance at Angry Stefan."

"You're not a good person, Damon." Elena said suddenly, and immediately his smile disappeared. "You don't treat people _nicely_." The words were not lost on him, and he was furious. She did not _deserve_ to know.

"Give me Francesca's book." His hands were on his hips immediately, he had rocketed out of his chair, and Elena couldn't help but notice the attractive way he stood, "Now."

"Why?"

"_It's probably the only thing in existence that'll prove you wrong_." He muttered, "You'll just read it and disregard it." There was a moment where neither of them said a word, and Elena lifted the book from her backpack.

"I believe her, sometimes," She said softly, opening the book to the first postcard, looking down at the beautiful handwriting which accompanied its postmark, "But... you were _too_ perfect," She said, "_Nothing_ like you are now. And you _married_ her? I can't believe that you loved her, Damon, you don't love _anything _that much." Her words felt like vervain slipping through his veins, painful, sickening and cruel.

"You've got no idea how wrong you are, do you?" He was seething. If she had been anyone else, he would have shattered her neck within seconds. As it was, he was getting closer and closer to that point – at least until she spoke again.

"Well, why isn't she here now? She must have left you." And silence shattered the tense air in the room.

_You will always be alone. _The words beat on his brain and spoke volumes in the silence.

"Things happen." He stiffened, and looked away from her, "Bad things happen, sometimes."

"But-"

"The book, Elena." He held his hand out again, but did not wait for her to hand it to him. He snatched it away and stalked off to his bedroom.

He had always known that Elena did not consider everything she said before the words came out of her mouth, but it was difficult. It was horrible to hear a lie which hurt him so much, unnecessary and incredible in his chest because he could not begin to try and explain himself – could not find the words to express exactly how he felt for Francesca, and how he considered Elena to be his only friend.

Until he did, Damon knew he would always, always be alone.

.

.

* * *

.

A/N: Hm, yes, Birthday me would like a review? Thakn you!


	16. Chapter 16

_**Disclaimer: To those lovely people who tell me I should be an author – I wish I had been. Unfortunately, I don't own this. **_

_**I must say, I had a fantasmagorical, alcoholical, ridiculous birthday. Thank you to all those who wished it. **_

_**Oh look, early update again. **_

_**: D **_

_**Enjoy!**_

_**.**_

__

**.**

* * *

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_Damon absolutely hated Christmas wrapping paper. _He hated Christmas at the best of times – all about family, and togetherness, and _love... _

It was absolutely everywhere, and Damon was feeling sick at the sight of it. Elena had decided that the Boarding House needed a sprucing up, and Stefan had gone along with it as an act of happiness which barely began to mask the heavy musk of hatred and tension that was boiling beneath the surface.

Bonnie knew that everything was coming to a head. The dark cloud over the roof of the Boarding House meant that that half of the town was essentially a no-go zone, and she had pulled out of school a week before the Christmas break was due to begin.

Matt was getting antsy because Elena was worried – and because he hadn't seen or heard anything about that damned bracelet which he and Caroline had worked so hard to repair. He was beginning to regret it, as well, but he didn't dare to say anything – it was for Elena, and everyone knew it.

He didn't even _like_ Damon. In actual fact, he was pretty sure that if nobody in the town saw him again, there wouldn't be a lot of sadness around.

.

.

.

_**Italy, 1993 – Francesca's 22**__**nd**__** Birthday. **_

.

.

.

Damon changed up a gear and pulled the roof up as Francesca, thoroughly comfortable and extremely satisfied, curled up in the front passenger seat, just watching him through heavy lidded eyes as she tried to stay awake. He gripped his wife's hand in the growing darkness of the evening, and told her that he loved her. _He would tell her the same thing every day for a hundred years._

"I never want today to end," she whispered, pressing one of her hands to the place he had bitten her, the other to his neck as she pulled him in for a kiss.

Damon, with his vampire reflexes, incredible eyesight and brilliant dexterity, didn't really need to watch the road as he drove. Where he should have pulled over to have his way with her again, Damon continued to drive.

What neither of them had expected, however, was the disturbance of a passing truck, and its poorly secured load. Two kegs of god-knows-what exploded onto the surface of the road, and Damon had to swerve to avoid them. Ever exuberant, however, his grip on the wheel slipped hard, and his casual avoidance, coupled with his dangerous level of speed, sent the couple, and the Ferrari, careering off of the road.

_They were in free fall. _

Damon had the honest belief that he was about to die, adrenaline was coursing through him and he was yelling, apologies, '_I love you'_s and just screaming. Francesca _knew_ she was about to die. Whichever way she looked at it, she knew that any injuries she sustained were going to be mortal, and that all of her injuries were going to hurt until the end.

She reached her hand out for Damon's, leaned over, and silenced his apology with a gentle kiss which spoke more than any words could say. When the Ferrari hit the bottom of the hill, all of its lights went out, and Damon felt Francesca's grip on his hand slacken.

In that second, all of the pain in his chest exploded into a sob, and he forced himself to unbuckle his seatbelt and attempt to get the pair of them out of the car. It was hard, more because when he had retrieved Francesca, and watched her form lay unmoving and silent in the darkness, he could barely see clearly for the tears.

In the darkness, around midnight, Damon held his wife, feeling her hair beneath his fingers and her skin brushing lightly against his. There was no heartbeat that could have been heard in the valley. It was simply Damon, holding tight the only thing he ever truly held dear.

_It wasn't supposed to happen that way._

.

It is during the darkness before dawn that things seem the clearest. There is a silence which nobody can shatter, only the birds – and there were none around that Damon could see.

He could, however, see everything for miles, and yet nothing mattered to him aside from the girl... No, the woman who lay dead in his arms. She was still so young, and so perfect, and in the half light, she looked as though she was about to stretch, wake up and kiss him good morning. Even her eyes appeared to be flickering in the darkness, her eyelashes surely only being shaken by the breeze.

"Francesca... I'll always love you," Damon whispered, sure that this was it; there was no future in his past.

He fingered the ring which lay on his finger, considering ending it as the sun came up, smiling at the stone shattered in two because the other half of it laid on the finger of the girl in his arms.

Permanently, Forever, _Sempre_.

He was about to tear the ring from his finger, ending the pain which was surely only beginning, but a slight movement - one which, had he not been hoping for it, and had he not had hypersenses, would have been totally invisible - caught his eye.

"Francesca?" Two fingers. He risked pressing two fingers into her palm. Her fingers convulsed around them. "Again," he demanded pressing his whole palm into hers, "Squeeze my hand again."

"Not right now." She managed to open her eyes, though her world was a little bit askew. "I think I'm dead."

"No," he laughed brightly, his eyes lighting up and his hands squeezing hers as he pulled her against him again. She shook her head at the sudden movement. She was dead – she must have been. Nobody could have survived _that_. "No, _pretty_ _girl_! You're very much alive! You're in... You must be... You're in transition!"

The words meant nothing to her, but they were so loud, as though he was shouting them, that she raised her hands to bat him away, attempting to clear her head of all the noise. Blinking her eyes open again, even in the strains of morning sunlight, the glare was painful to the point that her eyes began to sting.

"Why's it so bright?" She asked softly, shifting into his arms for comfort, for safety.

"The sun hurts for a little while," Damon whispered, putting his arms around her and gently rubbing circles across her hips with his thumbs, "But I have sunglasses," Stretching up, feeling the stiffness of nearly nine hours of sitting and sobbing for a death that had passed and so swiftly been thrown into reverse, Damon looked down at Francesca, who was still leaning back on her elbows, eyes closed, smiling lightly.

"Why aren't I in pain?" She asked suddenly, basking in the glow of what she honestly thought was the afterlife.

"It doesn't _hurt_, but we'll need to get human blood into you quickly..." Damon was rummaging in the decimated Ferrari's glove box, his head down, so he did not see the confused look on Francesca's face.

"What do you mean, blood?" She asked again, sitting right up and crossing her legs, "I'm pretty sure we're in Hea-"

Damon turned to her and quirked his eyebrows, holding up the Aviator sunglasses as though he had just won the lottery.

"You're technically dead, yes." He said softly, running his fingertips across her cheeks as he came closer to her, but she still didn't understand. "Remember last night? What we did up on the cliffs?"

"Well, obviously-" She started, and though she felt the heat against her cheeks, Damon would not have seen a blush. He simply shook his head.

"I mean... what _else_ we did." His right hand rose to slide along her neck, her right reflexively reaching for the wrist which she had drunk from the evening before. Her eyes widened in a realisation as he spoke, "You had my blood in you when we went over the cliff."

"It's happening?"

"I think it is," And both of them shared a bright smile before Francesca immediately felt afraid. Damon sensed it and pulled her straight into his arms. "It will be alright, Francesca," He held out his hand to her and tightly gripped hers between his fingers, "I promise you."

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

Damon had no right to be sad. He had no right to feel anything, really, because it was becoming far too dark for him to even start to see the light. He spent his time looking at old photographs and holding on to the memories which felt like they were fading away. He didn't want them to leave. They were beginning to be the only good thing about his... life? Non-life... god knows.

He always wanted to cry, but there were so few times which were appropriate, which were right or which felt good enough for him to do so.

Every time he felt close to sadness, or to happiness, or to anything more than apathy, he was treated with an incredible nagging voice which beat on the inside of his brain.

_You were a part of this from the beginning. You will never have a heart, because you will never know what it is to have a heart. You changed her. You broke her. You lost her. _

_You were supposed to be the better; the more experienced one, the one who knew what the hell he was doing because he had done it all before. Seen it all before. You were supposed to be the one who kept everything in order, who kept everyone from going insane. You were supposed to be sensible, to do the right thing, have nerves of steel, or at least pretend that you did. She was afraid, and you were not – at least, you would never show it. You put on a brave face for her. You had to._

_It is that simple, and there is no way that you can change that. Hindsight, after all is twenty-twenty._

_You will always be alone, no matter what you do. Everyone walks away from you – they can't trust you, you are unpredictable and you are not supposed to care._

_It hurts. It hurts primarily because you __**do **__care – you had the sensation of friendship and comfort once, but now, now they don't even give you a second glance. You are the evil one. You have to walk away from everything because everybody trusts you with nothing. _

_You know that you will always be alone. That is one rule that can never be broken.__You might break any other rule, but that one? Unbreakable. There was one person who broke it, and look what happened. When you think of her – her dark eyes__ entrancing you, taking a hold of your gaze and your heart and refusing to let go – you have to turn your head, blink, and walk away._

_You will always be alone. _

_Nobody else saw the way you looked at her – Francesca was the only one who saw that look, and it was because she was its subject. They never saw the hurt in your eyes that came with knowing that you could never stop loving her, but now, you know that the feeling can never be returned. You lost her. You have to keep trying, it hurts, but you have to keep going, even though it doesn't seem possible, even though you can't tell her how bad it hurts. You're sure she does know how you feel, but none of that is important any more. You, you look at yourself in the mirror every day, and you hate yourself. You used to doubt yourself, your capabilities when she was around._

_You will always be alone._

_Maybe one day things will work out. They might even get better._

_You doubt that, Damon Salvatore, and rightly so, but don't worry - Francesca will always love you. No matter what you decide to do. _

_Because of that, you will __**never**__ be alone. _

Damon opened the black notebook and couldn't help but stare at the picture of them on their wedding day. What he wouldn't give to live that all over again.

_._

_._

_._

* * *

_._

_._

_A/N: Yup. I really hope I'm throwing you massive amounts of confusion right now. It'll get better, I promise!_

_On the other hand, I would like to advertise that I will be writing five outtakes from this story, and would appreciate some ideas – If you want to see some StefAbelle (erm, poor portmanteau, sorry), some Damon-Francesca Smut, a date, a dance, whatever you want – drop me a line, let me know, yes?_

_Thanks lovelies – and review!_

_xxx_


	17. Chapter 17

_**Disclaimer: Oh, I am coining the term Iangasm, for the reaction I have at the sight of Mr. Somerhalder. He makes me go ungh inside. I wish I owned The Vampire Diaries. Thataway, I might have had the chance to meet him. **_

_**Sucks, eh?**_

_**Oh, erm, ungh, yes. I'm putting "Come Back When You Can" By Barcelona on when you get to the second 2010 flash. You'll want to read it slowly, carefully, and maybe if you have the time, shut your eyes and watch it play out in your head. **_

_**I love: Pandora03, G1rlanachr0n1sm and mouse555 for their level of awesome. **_

_**I love the rest of you, too. That's because you're all lovely. **_

_**Enjoy...**_

* * *

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

Damon spent his time wallowing.

It was rather pathetic, really, because he felt like he was turning into Stefan, and that sucked. Stefan was never happy, not one-hundred-percent, but Damon had seen a time in which he had been happy, and he clung to it.

Bright spots clouded his vision as he laid in his bed and watched the winter sun filter in, paled and more interesting because of the angle at which he was staring at it from. _Did he mention he was lying upside down?_

The little black book had become a sort of safe haven for him at this stage. He was lonely because even Alaric, who he had begun to think he was harbouring a little bit of a bromance with, seemed to be sick and tired of him – and none of it was _his _fault.

He hadn't actually _done_ anything – be it good or bad – in a very long time. It was most annoying.

Elena didn't talk to him either. He had written her a long letter, which he intended, _maybe _to mail to her, but not today, which explained everything that he wanted to say, everything he couldn't, and everything he never would. They amounted, essentially, to very much the same thing.

All of it an apology, one which he was not sure he really needed to send, because he surely did not need to defend the actions which had led to him leading such a happy life – if only for a little while.

Now, however, he was genuinely considering his place in Mystic Falls. His fingertips traced the edges of the picture which he had pulled from his notebook a million times in the past decade-and-a-half, and he wondered just what it would take to bring her back to him, or, failing that, to take himself to her.

It made him feel so lonely, but he wanted... Well, no, Damon didn't know what he wanted. Other than happiness, and somebody to love him.

It was simply happiness which he wanted, and honestly? _Nobody should be denied the chance to be happy. _

.

.

_**Italy, 1993, August 23**__**rd**_

.

.

This was one thing she had been wary of – her first taste of Blood. Damon had said it was like sugar water – some kind of nectar, quenching a thirst but at the same time nothing particularly special.

_Ice cream on a cold day._

Then again, Francesca was not entirely sure she believed him. When he laid beside her in the dead of night and gently bit down on any one of her pulse points, the sounds he made and the motions of gentle massage made her wonder if it was almost sexual in satisfaction.

When they had finally decided that it was time to move from the decimated Ferrari, Damon took the time to call Francesca's father from a small, empty – abandoned house, tell him that he had somehow let the Ferrari collapse off the cliff without injuring either of them. When he had calmed down to the point that Damon could apologise for the worry and stress they had caused, he asked kindly that his daughter be returned to him in near pristine condition.

Damon had agreed, then hung up laughing as he pulled Francesca closer and she nestled up against his lap.

She was tired – she needed blood, and Damon knew that there was a village very close, and that there would most definitely be people there who would be willing to share.

.

The pair arrived at the house of Fabiano Del'Amici as Francesca began to stumble and her initial burst of transitional energy began to fade. He held her tightly in his arms as she rested her forehead against his shoulder.

"Come on," He whispered, "It'll be alright." She nodded weakly and Damon swiftly stepped up the garden path and rapped smartly on the door.

Fabiano was single, forty-eight and rather compelled as he took in the sight which met his eyes as he opened his front door. Two rather stunning individuals, one a tallish, dark man with wild, desperate eyes and hair which looked in need of a cut, and the other, a petite girl, dark hair glinting auburn in the sunlight, _his _hand wrapped around her waist, both of them with their hair blowing wildly in the wind as he stood, transfixed by the image for a long moment.

"Si?" Francesca wavered at the sound, cringing into Damon's arms as Damon set his jaw a little way and smiled at the older man, "Can I help you?"

"Our car broke down a while back – and I think she might be..." Damon shook his head, at a loss for words as to whether she was tired or dying, or ill... "I don't know. We've been walking for a while, and we wondered, would it be alright if we could use your phone?"

"And a bathroom," Francesca sounded as though she was about to vomit, and honestly, the churning in her stomach was something akin to that feeling. "Please?"

Fabiano halted for a moment, for the pair looked so well put together they surely could not have spent a morning walking. He supposed, however, they could have had a suitcase, or a change of clothes which they could have used.

The poor girl looked so tired, so ill that Fabiano wondered whether she was pregnant and her boyfriend – for Fabiano could tell by the way that he held her to him that he was clearly very in love – so desperate that he could not help but nod and step aside.

"Come in, the pair of you."

Satisfied by the subtle sound of an invitation, Damon slowly began to step across the threshold with Francesca in his arms, holding her upright and squeezing her tightly as the older man made inane small talk and left them alone to use his phone.

"Sweetheart, are you ready?" He murmured, looking down at her and pressing his lips lightly to her temple. She moved with his lips, leaning into him and nodding.

"Yes," And the single syllable left Damon with thousands of possibilities, a million different kinds of future running through his head.

All of them with her.

He touched her hand and gently squeezed it, his heart soaring and his mind racing.

"Come in five minutes," He whispered, standing to let her lay down against the arm of the sofa.

"Okay," She nodded and he left the room.

.

Fabiano had busied himself by making coffee for the pair. They did not look unkempt, but they did look tired. He turned to look at the man, the one the girl had called Damon, as he stepped into the room and quietly took a seat at his kitchen table.

"You take good care of her, don't you?" Fabiano asked, and the man – no, the boy – for he could only be twenty-four at the oldest, gave a small, secret smile which told him that Damon would do anything for the girl in the other room.

"Of course." Then, as though he were about to tell Fabiano a secret, Damon's voice dropped to a melodious whisper, and his stunning eyes darkened ever-so-slightly. "Would you put the coffee down?"

Feeling as though he were walking on air, Fabiano complied.

Damon's voice swam through his head, but that was it, that was all. He was filled with a kind of silence and peace, and his vision clouded to all but his intended purpose.

"Undo the top three buttons of your shirt and sit in that chair."

"Of course." He nodded simply, "What are you doing?" For Damon had found a bottle of balsamic vinegar, and was currently twisting it nombly between his fingers.

"Oh, nothing." He shrugged, but in a blink, Damon was stood beside the older man. "Close your eyes and relax. If you don't do that, then this is going to hurt."

Del'Amici jumped at the sound of the glass bottle smashing, splintering into long shards as Damon crushed it between his strong hands.

"_Relax_."

And Fabiano Del'Amici did, because the voice told him it wouldn't hurt a bit.

.

Counting five minutes had filled Francesca with massive amounts of unease.

Damon always spoke softly, and that had made her feel so safe ninety-percent of the time, but this morning, she felt nothing but ill and afraid.

Five minutes after her strength and her light had left her side, she was taking slow steps towards the kitchen and resting her hand against the doorframe.

"Pretty Girl," Damon looked up from Del'Amici's neck, and crossed the room to take her by the hand, pull her gently through the maze of the kitchen so she was standing in front of Fabiano's still form. "He's not dead."

A short pause as she looked up at him, clearly panicked. His fingertips stroked against her bare arm, and she calmed a little way.

"Don't let me hurt him," She whispered, gripping his hand so tightly that she thought she might break something. "Please."

"I won't." He smiled down at her and slowly pulled her to stand behind the compelled man. "Slowly, Francesca, and when it gets too much, no matter how difficult, try to pull away."

"Okay."

She dropped her head slightly, and pressed her lips to the warm skin, feeling the blood trickle slowly, ever so slowly into her waiting mouth.

It tasted _good._ Not as she had expected, metallic and salty, but instead more... more like sweet alcohol, a good red wine. Very quickly, she was trying to pull back, already addicted, and Damon had his hand gently on her shoulder, pulling her away. She looked almost woozy, disagreeable to the point that she tore Damon's hand from hers and growled at him, feeling genuinely overtaken by the monster within.

Damon simply gripped her hand and ran his fingers across her palm, having thoroughly expected such a furious rebuttal.

"Francesca," It was a warning, but also an attempt to pull her back to reality.

"I want more." She managed, her breaths coming in short pants, "I don't want to hurt him, but I wan-"

"No," Damon gripped both of her upper arms and forced her to face him. He wouldn't allow what happened to him because of Stefan, the murder of an innocent girl during his change, he would not allow that to happen with Francesca, "You don't."

A soft brush of his fingertips across the apples of her cheeks, and a gentle, slow, passionate kiss brought Francesca back down to earth.

Her throat burned painfully – she had assumed it would be like the craving of a cigarette, but she did not really know. It was hard to explain it, but as Damon began to clear everything up – influencing Del'Amici, and swiftly mopping up the pungent vinegar on the floor, Francesca realised that it was going to be a lot more difficult for her to cope than she had initially anticipated.

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

Elena Gilbert found Stefan Salvatore with his head in his hands, staring at the book which had sent his world reeling.

"I... I did that." Were his only words, words which he honestly could not have understood the weight of. "That was _my_ fault?" It was almost as though he was incredulous at the thought of it being his own fault. As though he _couldn't_ do anything wrong.

"Stefan-" Elena started, but it rather quickly appeared that he was hosting a pity party of his own design, because he shook his head silently and rose as though he was about to lock himself down in the basement.

_It irritated Elena to no end. _So, she moved on, this time trying to find Damon to entertain her, but it seemed as though the black cloud which had coloured the entire Boarding House was definitely colouring Damon's mood as well.

"What's wrong with you?" She put it bluntly, and was not surprised to hear Damon huff and roll over, not looking across at Elena. "_Honestly_, Damon."

He kept his face carefully masked, but couldn't resist the urge to raise his eyebrows at her and shook his head a quarter of an inch to the left, a quarter back to the right.

"You are unbelievable, Elena." She cocked her head as though she didn't know what he was talking about, "Honestly? You came in here because you were bored, and you're getting a rise out of me because it's exactly what you want. You're set in your ways, and you have to have what you want all the time because that's what makes you happy."

Elena was struck silent. She honestly hadn't thought about it like that, but there was no doubting it was true.

"Yeah, I know. Horrible when you realise it, isn't it?" There was a beat of silence where she half-expected him to raise his arms in a hug and try to make it all better, but he did not move, "You're throwing everything away because you don't want to believe the truth, Elena, and it's difficult for me to keep this up."

"Damon, I-" He held up a hand to silence her before she could get anything out that would stem the flow of his argument.

"No, I don't think you get to talk right now," He shook his head and straightened up, "We were married, and yes, I do love her – enough that I would want to be human for her, or that I would give everything up just so I could live it all again, and everything would go perfect," He paused for a short breath and looked back at her, "But I can't have that, and it's because I was selfish, and tried to get her to change," Shaking his head, he forced himself to his feet and pulled Elena up to the window.

He stood her in front of him and held a hand over her eyes, held her nose so she couldn't breathe. She spluttered for a moment, trying to fight it, but then realised what he was doing. _Depriving her of her senses._

He held her tightly, almost cutting off her breathing, but when he let go, and her eyes shot open, her vision sharpened from the blackness, breaths coming in short gasps as she looked around and took in the colours, the shapes of the things outside the window. It was stunning, and beautiful.

"I see the darkness." Damon whispered, "The deprivation." There was a long moment of silence, and he blinked twice, pushing the burning sensation in his throat down and away from his voice, "She was the colour, the taste and the vision." There was a moment of silence, "Now, you tell me I'm lying."

Elena stood, staring out of the window for the longest time, until she heard the door close and realised that Damon was no longer in the room.

* * *

.

.

.

_**A/N: Cruel, aren't I? Theories, Guesses and Reviews? **_

_**Love y'all xx**_


	18. Chapter 18

_**Disclaimer: Hello, No, Owning it would be an impossibility for me. I'm sorry. **_

_**Oh. Oh my, I hope you don't hate this.**_

_**Mouse, Pandora, g1rlanachr0n1sm – You're all fantastic. You make me smile. **_

_**Enjoy!**_

.

.

* * *

.

_**2010**_

.

.

"They were married, Stefan." Elena spoke to him through the thick, barred wooden door which he had instilled himself behind, as an attempt to act out some kind of penitence, some kind of apology for Annabelle and what he had done.

"I know." And he sounded hollow. "I was Damon's best man. I walked her down the aisle."

"Why didn't anybody-"

"You wouldn't have believed him, would you?" Stefan looked up at Elena, balancing his head in his hands and watching her through the bars, "You believe him now, because... well, you've seen it." He stopped, "You saw how real it was."

Another long pause, Stefan lifted his hand and dropped it, it fell slowly, as though he was sinking through water and he sighed again, dropping his head back into his hands.

"I don't know what to do, Elena."

"What?"

"It's not easy, you know."

"What isn't? Stefan, I don't know how long I can keep up with you – you're talking in a million riddles, and it never helps me-"

"It's my fault." Stefan blurted suddenly, sick of having to hide it from Elena, "Do you know what? _I ruined Damon's life."_ He stopped and watched her, waited for a reaction he was sure would come. Disgust, hurt, confusion and anger flitted across Elena's face, then pity surfaced and Stefan let out a sigh. _She just wouldn't get it. _"Get the hell out, Elena. Please."

.

.

.

_**Italy, October 1993**_

.

.

.

Stefan was sitting opposite her, reading the paper and honestly not paying their situation any attention.

"I don't think I like the lack of control I have," Francesca started suddenly, breaking the terse and awkward silence which had made them, "it's very difficult, isn't it?"

Stefan slowly lowered the newspaper and almost glared at her. She had only been trying to make conversation and the look he had given her made her feel anything but alright.

"What would you know?" He flicked the paper back into shape and continued to read.

"I assumed that... Well," Francesca stopped and looked up at the younger Salvatore brother, who was staring back at her, expectantly but angrily, "Well, that you'd understand."

"I don't have a problem with my control."

"Aunt Annabelle." Francesca was not stupid. She was not an idiot and she could see - no matter how small it was, the sliver of compassion that Stefan had wrapped around his heart. "You didn't want to hurt her. Your control was tested too far, so-"

"Be quiet." He demanded it as though he were speaking to an incredibly petulant child. "You don't understand what it means to lose control. You never had any in the first place."

"I know." Francesca's voice was small and a little afraid. "I'm still learning, though. Damon told me about how hard it was in the beginning, a long time ago... And it made sense, but now it just seems like there is no logic. It's horrible, Stefan, I know."

"No, no." He shook his head, folded up the paper and went to leave the room. "I don't think you do."

.

.

Francesca had decided it would be safer for her to hole herself up in the room she shared with Damon until he came home. He had said it was just an ordinary run to the blood bank, but it was taking longer than usual because blood stocks were low, and of course, because he had been caring for Francesca, showing her the way like a mother, not a lover, he was fighting with the desire to come home and simply ravish her as some kind of apology.

_He liked apology sex._

_He liked happy sex as well._

_At that stage, Damon knew he __**really**__ needed to get home._

There was silence in the Salvatore house as Francesca grew bored of the books and the globe which she usually enjoyed gazing at, to find a place that she knew she and Damon would enjoy. The day, for one of September standards, was incredibly warm, and even though she did not sweat as a human did, she would have wanted the window open as a human. So, she opened it, because even as a vampire, she required some kind of routine – some humanity.

"Hey! Don't do that!" Children's voices. She smiled and stood, leaning out of the window to see the playground in the deserted park across the street. At no point did she even realise that she was gripping the frame so hard that she was splintering the wood beneath her hands.

"I'll do what I want!" The little girl was taunting a boy on the monkey bars as she swung up and down, eventually, as the heat forced her palms to sweat, slipping from them and falling to the wood-chip floor.

She let out a wail and almost immediately, Francesca was judging the speed at which she could get out to the girl, to help her. She looked as though she was in a lot of pain. _Maybe she had broken something_. In half a second, Francesca had jumped into the tree that was beside their bedroom window and had almost flown to the floor.

"Are you okay, _dolcezza_?" The tiny blonde girl looked up at Francesca, awed and confused. "Are you hurt? Show me?"

Her lips parted in a gasp as the little girl lifted her leg. There was blood dripping down her leg and splinters clearly stuck in her skin.

"Miss, can you help me?" But Francesca was holding her breath and shaking her head. Coppery tastes filled her mouth and she could simply _smell_ the blood. _She wanted it_. She couldn't have it, she told herself that immediately, but damn she wanted it.

"Stefan!" She called his name because she knew he would hear her, he was in the house and he was definitely closer than Damon, but he did not come. "Damon?" And yet, there was nothing.

_He would not come. He did not care._

Stefan Salvatore heard the frantic calls of Francesca, his brother's wife, but he disregarded it. He did not care for the girl, and he would not care. Even if it was not her fault.

When Francesca lost control, she dropped to her knees and pressed her face into her hands. Naturally curious, the children pressed their faces closer to the girl who appeared to be crying – and who soon would most definitely be in tears, but they were stunned to see that her face had changed as though she was wearing a mask of plasticine and makeup.

"Are you alright?"

"Go!" Francesca growled the words almost inaudibly, still clinging onto the threads and strains of humanity which were all over the place, though it was difficult. The children remained, and her chest began to hurt.

"Please, miss, let us help you-"

"No, no," It was still a growl, the mask in place, and yet, as the darkness exploded over her vision and all she could feel was the little girl's blood spilling quickly into her mouth.

Stefan found her when he realised everything had gone silent and there was fresh blood in the air.

"I-I compelled the boy not to remember," She whispered as soon as she felt him standing in the doorway. "I promise you, he won't remember a thing."

He lifted her up into the air within a half-second, staring at her and all around her with disgust. Her body was covered in blood, mixed with tears and sickness and god knows what, and she wanted to throw up.

"A child?" He could smell the blood on her, it was fresh, it was young. "You killed a child?"

"I didn't... I asked for help!" She reached out to him but Stefan took a step back. "I called out to you; you must have heard... why didn't you come?"

Stefan felt a pang of guilt, a pang of sorrow for the girl who was standing in front of them, honestly so broken and confused, desperate and worried, but he disregarded it. _He could not stand to feel._

"You, _girl_, are a _monster_." He stopped and wrapped a hand around her wrist, bending it the wrong way and trapping her into submission, "Even Damon, hell, even _**I**_ would not kill an innocent _child_."

And her body crumpled. She shook in his hands and fell to her knees and everything around her melted into nothing.

.

She woke to Damon's arms wrapped around her, soothing her by rubbing soft circles on the bare skin of her arms and back. He had stripped her, he had washed her and he had cared for her. _She felt so sick. _

"I'm horrible." She whispered, burying her face into his chest, kissing the skin over where his heart would not, could not beat.

"These things happen," He returned simply, "You're not a monster, you're _learning_."

"No, I... he said I was... I killed a _little_ _girl_, Damon..." She bent her head down and looked away. "I make myself sick."

"You shouldn't listen to Stefan, he has no sense, he doesn't even..." He ducked his head and gently kissed her on the lips, "You shouldn't try and change what you've become." He murmured the words, "Only begin to control it."

"You don't understand, Damon." She shook her head violently and gripped his hands as the tears began to fall, "I cannot live like this. Not at all." She stopped, "How can you love somebody who did that to someone so... _innocent?"_

"Francesca, I'll love you no matter what, you know that."

"I can't live like this." She shook her head and bowed it again, "Damon... I wish... I wish I could die."

The words shocked him. He didn't believe she had spoken them aloud until he looked into her eyes and saw nothing but honest fear and sincerity in them – she felt that way because there was nothing else inside.

"I feel as though if I didn't have you..." She pressed herself against him and tightened her grip on his arms, "I wouldn't be able to..."

She didn't have to say it – Damon knew exactly how she felt – and he would never force her into anything. He would spend months and years attempting to convince her that there were other ways, better ways of coping, of moving through such a temptation, an obsession...

Francesca knew she could not cope. She had hoped, by planning a little more time to prepare before her change, that she would find a way to become accustomed to the thirst, to fix that so that she could turn and be with Damon in the perfect way. Things did not work out like that, unfortunately, and things never would.

She cried. For five weeks, six weeks, two months, _every_ _night_ she cried because she felt so torn in two – the half which wanted to stay with Damon forever, to throw aside her worries and start again with him, to make everything better, make everything go away. The other part of her begged for a release. It begged for the world to be made a better place because she was not in the way of it, it was terrifying and it hurt and she knew it, but this was the part of her that had to win. She could not be selfish – she could not be with Damon forever, because she did not want to destroy them.

She could see it happening, and she did not like the idea of it even a small amount.

Damon was an instinctively selfish being. He cared very little for very few people, but Francesca was his world. There was no doubting it – and he was very clearly hers. If anybody had seen them – pre or post-change – interacting with each other, they would immediately admit that they were so much in love that it was almost sickening to see.

But Damon _was_ selfish. He did not want to let her go – in no way would he let her go without a fight. He tried hard – and he tried constantly to make her believe that she was good. Because she was – there were no two ways about it, she was good and kind and honest and yes, the little girl had been a mistake, but it was just that – a mistake.

_Only a mistake. _

But he could not stand to see her so sad. He would do anything to keep her with him – to hold her hand and make her feel good and just _be – _because Damon was good at existing, living the easy life and having a good time - but she couldn't do it. What pained him the most was that he understood. He knew how much it hurt, and yet he knew that it would always get better.

"I have to be there." He said one night. "I have to make sure that you're okay."

"Thank you." She watched him, his eyes shining in the darkness, tears on his cheeks, "I love you." Then, slower and with a huge amount of trepidation, "You know that I wish there was another way, don't you?"

"I do." And the fact that the rings on their fingers signified those words made the pair of them shake far into the night.

_It wasn't supposed to be this way. _

.

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

.

Damon shook his head as he realised Elena was clomping up the stairs in her boots. Her lips were pursed and her hair was in disarray, but Damon was sure she was just infuriated, not turned on, or...

He stopped his train of thought at that precise moment. She was his only friend, she barely liked him, and he really did not want to make anything more complicated than it already was. He was beginning to see the reasoning behind Bonnie's cryptic clues as to his future, and yet he was worried.

The things which he was heading toward were not pretty, and they only appeared to have one consequence. He didn't even know if it was going to work, or whether it was all going to go to hell... and he would go down along with it.

He wouldn't be surprised if it all went wrong, and he somehow managed to exist out of sync with the rest of the world for all of eternity, but he knew, no matter how much pain it was going to cause, he just knew he had to try.

That was why Christmas was going to be the worst time of year.

.

.

.

* * *

_**A/N; review? **_


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: This is roughly 3000 words of blah. Much, much blah. LJ Smith wouldn't have written this. Seriously. I don't own TVD. **

**I'm deliberately heading back from 1994 to 1991 again. I'm shifting you sideways to give you a single hint of normalcy. **

**Enjoy?**

* * *

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

He stopped, watched and waited for Elena to leave her bedroom before he clambered through her window. The room was unnaturally silent, with so few things in it - a by product of her spending so much time at the Salvatore place - that Damon was sure that the envelope he was leaving would be obvious, incredibly visible in such a bare room. He hoped she would be too wrapped up in herself and Stefan's difficulties to notice it, sitting proudly beneath her pillow.

He wouldn't put anything there usually, it was a place kept exclusively for the things that a person wanted to keep close to them, keep private, but alive and in their memory. By 'them', 'a person' and 'they', Damon could not help but mean himself. The space beneath his pillow was for the things like Francesca's wedding ring, which he could feel under his pillow every night, disrupting his sleep but keeping him comforted or for old photos which he did not look at often, but still, it was nice to know they were there.

Damon liked comfort. He had said as much to Elena before - citing that as the reason for his four-by-four, as opposed to the Ferrari - a car which he could barely stand to look at nowadays - too many bad memories. He did not care to add that it was because comfort was the most he could hope for, one of the things he had to hold onto, because honestly? He had very little else to grasp.  
A quick trip to Bonnie Bennett, just to be sure, to _know_... and he was all sorted.

He was ready to face it all - only not today. _It was Christmas day_.

.

.

_**Italy, January, 1991. **_

_**.**_

_**.**_

It was warm for January – but it was always warm around here. Francesca's parents were out – at some function or other, and Damon had quite easily come in through her window. She had told him he could use the front door like a normal human being – but since when had Damon ever been normal?

He had found her lounging around in her underwear, clearly stifled by the warmth of the day, and had promptly exchanged her bra for his overshirt. It was white, and he was hoping to coax her into the garden so that he could turn a hose on her before they could '_enjoy' _a '_private'_ afternoon together.

His plans were scuppered as she had stretched up, the half-open shirt revealing every single element of Damon's desires. As he grabbed her around the waist, tugged her toward him, all she could feel was his hands.

Large hands, pressed tight between her thighs and pulling her toward him, to touch, taste and simply feel. He lifted her, moving her on to straddle his lap as he rubbed her skin beneath the pads of his fingers and she simply couldn't resist grinding down on his lap. Cotton boxers – black, of course – met with silk panties which he had previously deemed 'simply deviant', and he gasped as her grip moved to his hair, where she twisted her hands and fisted the follicles, creating sensations in him that he never thought could have existed before.

"More," He whispered, and she complied, forcing her lips down to his and grinding her hips down as his hands pulled her to him.

He did it again, pulling her down, making her gasp before his fingertips twisted into her panties and between her legs, feeling her soaked, wet and very, very ready for him. He couldn't help the smirk which graced his lips, making her sigh, as he let out a rumbling laugh. It was as though she was made for him, so perfect and so prepared as he slicked his fingers with her, brought them to his lips and started the journey all over again.

_He loved the taste of her. _

"Damon, please," She almost whined the words the next time he wrapped one hand around the curve of her him and pulled her down onto his waiting fingers, it was getting too much and he knew it. Her body arched up, bucked as her head lolled back and his fingers teased her swollen flesh. She let out a shriek of a groan and tightened around his fingertips. Damon lost control.

Three seconds. It took three seconds for him to turn the knickers into silk rags, and he slowly, dangerously, _tantalisingly_ pressed his fingers against her once again. She dropped her head forward, groaned again, determined to have a second release from his touch, but he simply stilled her with his superior strength, and she had to deal with his teasing as his fingers slowly circled her hips and her lower lips and he pressed them into her at a snail's pace.

It was always like this between them, they teased each other until one got the upper hand and decided to lead the other in the game of cat-and-mouse, who could lose themselves first, who would fight for the other to collapse against them. In a way, it was nice to feel Damon shaking as he pressed his fingers into her, stretching her slowly, adding a second finger, a third until he slammed into _that _spot and she started to see stars. That was a very, very nice feeling.

She was still wearing his shirt, even if her underwear was strewn anywhere and everywhere through the room, and he was still in the T-shirt he had thought to put underneath his button up. With fingertips slow and supple against his slow moving body, but exhausted by sincere satisfaction, Francesca began to trace the definition of his muscles, leaned forward to do the same with her tongue. Damon loved the warmth of her lips, he loved the taste of her body and he honestly loved being with her, no matter whether it was physically, or emotionally, or –

"_Fuck_!" Without warning – or there may have been, Damon was entirely lost in his train of thought, Francesca's fingertips lightly guided him to her entrance and without even a second thought he had slipped into her, feeling her warm and willing around him as her lips parted and he swiftly zoned back in.

He really wanted to make things official with the girl who was writhing beneath him, whose body was soaked and appreciative, seeking the same friction he wanted, and whose mind was incredible, enough to take him on and occasionally win. He wanted this to be real, not a dream, or a fling, and he wanted... _he wanted her. _

"I'm taking you out." Mid-thrust was probably the worst time in the history of bad times for Damon to lose his thread of conversation and just come out with the words.

"Sorry!" She looked up at him and twisted her hands in his hair as she shifted brightly against his hips. He bucked back against her and she moaned as he hit _that _spot inside her.

"You heard me, I'm taking you out. We've been doing this for four months maybe?"

"Five," she blushed and he ran a finger around her cheeks, framing the colour in his mind for a later time. "But I don't see-"

"What do you see going on in six months, seven months, Francesca?" Damon hated to ask, because it more than entirely scared him to think that he might not be with her in that time, "Where do you see us?"

"Together, obviously," she whispered, running her hands across his shoulders, feeling the words come to her simply but entirely able to appreciate the solidity of his muscles and the way they strained as he held himself over her, still buried inside of her, "Together, in love and planning for years of a future, not just months."

"Then your parents need to know."

"I'm sure they do." And those four words sent shocks of fear through Damon. If her parents already knew of his existence, it would be as though he was attacking her, he was sure. They would hate him for being secret, hidden, and for making their daughter hide him in the first place. His arms shook, even though he was not tired and his strength was not failing him.

"What are you thinking, Damon?" Her fingertips touched his cheeks lightly, ghosting across his skin as though she wasn't really there. He didn't like that feeling.

"That I don't want to lose you." And his lips pressed down against hers, trying to impress upon her the importance of what he was trying to say.

"You won't, no matter what." She promised him that, but, as he ran his hands through her hair, he wondered whether 'no matter what' had more conditions than he would have expected.

"I still want to meet your parents," he murmured, "To take you out on dates like... Well, like normal."

"We are normal," Francesca returned easily, because she believed that it was true, "but okay. Take me out." The genuine glee that Damon was feeling, happiness he could only find with Francesca, that he had not felt since he was human, before Katherine, manifested itself in his actions, the huge smile, spreading all across his face and making his eyes glitter bright in the dusk night.

He leaned over her, pressing her body back onto the mattress and began to unbutton her blouse, sliding his hands up against her bare skin and ensuring goosebumps erupted across her skin.

"You are sinful," he whispered, "I know I keep telling you, but it's true. I know all about sinning..." She smiled brightly and slid one arm around his neck, pulling him down and pushing her lips up to meet his.

She groaned loudly as his fingertips found the band of her bra and snapped it in seconds, palming her breast slowly and then deciding that he preferred a location a lot further south. Slowly, Damon pressed his hand flat against Francesca's stomach, following the path of his hand with his lips. He pulled out of her and she almost screamed at the loss.

"_Pretty_ _girl_," he whispered as he pressed a kiss to each side of her hips, then lifted his head up and pressed his body down on top of hers.

"You're wearing too many clothes," She said simply, reaching for the hem of his black t-shirt and tugging it up so her fingers could easily trace the muscles across his torso. She could barely believe they had been fucking only minutes before, but they were still half dressed. _No. Of course she could believe it. They were addicted to each other, to touching each other, wanting each other – needing each other. _

"I _need_ you," he whispered straight into her ear, his hands grabbing at anything, everything that he thought would keep her close to him and keep them together.

_He wanted them together forever. Sempre. Always._

But he hadn't meant to tell her that he needed her out loud. That was a weakness he really did not want to expose.

.

She stepped down the stairs just as the doorbell rang and somebody rapped smartly on the door. The lump in her throat exploded into butterflies which she feared would fly out of her mouth if she so much as started to say a word.

Francesca was neither sure who had opened the door to invite Damon in, nor who had told him to come into the hall, but it definitely didn't sound like her.

"My parents are coming," she said as he went to press his lips against hers, and in a half second, he had stiffened and pulled away. She laid a hand on his arm and gently pulled him into the hallway as he pulled off his shoes, "You're shaking."

"I can't stop." Damon's voice held a tremor which left the pair of them stunned. He was never afraid of anything, so this was strange, "All I've done all morning is shake..." When her parents did not immediately appear, he began to pace, shaking harder than he thought he really could have done before.

"Slow down, calm down, Damon, please..." She ran her fingertips across his cheeks, watching the way his horror-mask, his vampire face receded beneath her fingers. "It'll all be alright, okay?"

He nodded, though there was the genuine air of nervousness and hesitation as Francesca's father and mother appeared from the kitchen.

"Madre, papa, this is Damon," Francesca was ultimately scared, though with Damon's hand on the small of her back, protective and careful, and her mother smiling widely back at her, eyes wide open, looking better than she had done in months, she grinned and felt a lot stronger, "Damon Salvatore."

"Salvatore?" Francesca's mother was jolted upright in surprise as she looked her daughter's boyfriend over and hesitantly held out her hand, "Do you hail from Milan?"

"No, Mrs. Luch," Damon shook his head, "Personally, I don't. My brother Stefan, on the other hand, he definitely spent some time in Milan a few years ago."

Francesca's mother nodded, her face tightening and her smile fading just a little bit.

"How old are you?" She was blunt, as well, and Francesca could not beat the blush which exploded across her face as Damon's mouth opened and closed. _Did she expect him to say one-hundred-and-forty-five? _Damon debated it for a moment, then decided on the number she probably wouldn't slaughter him for.

"Twenty-one." It was a bald faced lie, blatant and obvious, but Damon intended to hang around for a long time, so starting small would _really_ give him a hand when he had to explain why he was twenty-five and hadn't even begun to age.

"I see." She nodded, but Damon knew she did not really believe him. "Where are you going tonight?"

"I thought I would take Francesca out to a restaurant I know," He stopped, and looked her up and down before transferring his gaze to Francesca, who was dressed simply in a navy blue sundress, still holding onto his fingers as though it would be anything but pleasurable to let him go, "I've made reservations for half past seven," He paused, "I thought we might go walking by the river afterwards," He ran a hand down her arm and ensured that her body could feel the trail of fire behind his hands.

"Of course," Francesca's mother nodded, and her father followed suit, as Damon and Francesca began to leave for the evening, "Be back by midnight, and Francesca?" The pair of them looked back at her mother's call, "Be careful."

"Of course, Madre." She nodded, and Damon smiled back at Francesca's mother as he tightened his grip on Francesca's hand.

"I'll make sure she doesn't come to any harm."

Francesca's mother was more worried about that single sentence than anything had happened to her daughter in the past nineteen years.

.

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

Elena was fretting and overbalancing and panicking and nothing was right and everything was wrong and God she couldn't cope. She wanted to run away, to go home, get away from it all and just mail him the bracelet, because honestly, Matt was right. She had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble for something which Damon would probably throw onto his bed and forget about the day after.

Then she remembered the reaction he'd had when she had broken it. The fury, the hurt, the genuine pain and just a little bit - well, no, a ridiculous amount to horror. It was as though she'd broken a piece of his heart. Elena never liked being the bad guy, okay, there were times that she had to be bad, like Georgia last year, before the Katherine thing, and all of those horrible, horrible times, but now? Now she just liked to be.

With Stefan's problems, and Damon's sarcasm and she liked the balance of knowing what to expect. She always managed to neglect the fact that with Damon, all you could expect would be the unexpected. It was that that made it easy, difficult, horrible, good... However she termed it, it was just an easier life, easier to live it without the complications of whatever was going on - and right now, Elena wished that it would all go away.

She didn't realise what such a wish could mean.

He was sitting in the living room when Elena came over. It was about four o'clock - Jenna had let her out for a little while so she could wish everyone a happy birthday. Bonnie hadn't answered the door, and Caroline had been out, but everybody else - basically Matt, had been delighted to see her.

In due time, she stopped, shaking snow and the freezing cold from her boots as she pulled her jacket off and turned around.

"Stefan's out." Damon didn't look up, simply swirled his glass of Scotch and stared deeper into the fire.

He had been feeling as though he had taken as much out of this life as he could do. True, Elena was here - she was fun, but... He wanted to... It all came down to the fact that he had never intended to become a vampire in the first place. He had never intended to fall in love with a beautiful girl that he ultimately destroyed. He never intended to remain in love with her – even to this day. That was just a part of his fortunes – or his misfortunes.

_A mistake. Everything he did was a mistake._

Only a mistake - and they could be erased. Only... Erasing something like this would have consequences. It would be difficult to move on from.

_Everything had consequences._

"I'm not here for Stefan." Elena was sat beside him, looking up at him with wide eyes. "I've got your Christmas present." He quirked his eyebrows and simply stared at her.

"Present? Why the hell would you-?" Then it hit him. "You didn't."

He stood up and moved away from her, as though getting away would easily deter her. As he sat down in the armchair, she followed and knelt down in front of him. His eyes filled with sadness, Damon looked up at Elena. Everything about this was wrong, and yet so kind, so lovely.

Just another mistake.

.

.

.

.

* * *

_**A/N - 1: Review?**_

_**A/N – 2: There are actually between three and four chapters left of this fic now, dependant on whether I keep one of them in, or take it out... Well, that, and an extremely short epilogue. The next four chapters are probably the most charged, and the most terrifying of them. **_

_**You will most likely need tissues, because hell, I did. **_

_**But probably not for chapter 20. **_


	20. Chapter 20

_**Disclaimer: Rrahhh. I wrote the last little bit to Johnny Cash's version of Hurt. Do you think LJ Smith did that with TVD? Obviously I Don't own it. **_

_**But You guys own me. **_

_**You're amazing, your reviews are stunning, and for that, I give you this chapter. It's early. I'm not posting until Tuesday afternoon, if I have time. If I don't, it'll be Thursday. **_

_**Feel free to mull this over. **_

_**Feel free to hate it. **_

_**Let me take you back. And Let me make it hurt. **_

"_**If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way." - Hurt. **_

_**I think it qualifies as a little part of Damon, too.**_

__

**Enjoy. **

* * *

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**2010**_

.

.

Damon watched Elena watch him for all of thirty seconds, as he held the box in his hands. Her vibrating form soon got to him, however, and he felt the need to speak, just to still her activity.

"What is this, exactly?" He pretended that he didn't know. He didn't want to know. But he did. He didn't open the box, but stared at it, instead. He didn't get presents often, and the enormity of this one... it unnerved and irritated him.

"Open it," she said simply, a smile growing on her face because she knew he would like what he saw. "Open it, and you'll find out."

"I don't like surprises, Elena." Damon said softly, "Surprises are..." He shook his head and raised his hand out to her, the one holding the box. A moment later, he raised his head and looked at Elena as though he were a child, "Open it for me?"

"I... okay," Elena nodded and slowly opened the box, rotating it slowly so that he could see what was inside.

He stopped dead, and Elena feared for a moment that whatever was left of his heart had ceased to beat, because of what laid on the soft tissue paper inside the box.

He was right. And he hated it.

"Where did... Where did you get this?" He managed after a few seconds, "H- how?"

"You left it in my room. I couldn't - you clearly... You need it." She pressed the box into his hands and stepped away.

"No." He murmured, "I said I didn't want it! You weren't supposed to-" he raised his hand and let out one of the strangest sounds Elena had ever heard. For a moment, he looked as though he were about to explode, then, he dropped his head into his hands and let out a short growl.

_Well, she hadn't expected that._

"What? Damon, you said that this was your most... That you..." She was immediately stricken, lost for words. This was supposed to make it better. This was supposed to make it okay between them. She knew she had been cruel, and horrible, and distrusting, but she really needed to make it better. This was supposed to be it. The catalyst.

It was. But not in the way she wanted it to be.

"You weren't supposed to-" Damon felt his chest constricting and picked up the leather bracelet, holding it in front of him. "Who... Who made the clasp? It's different, isn't it?"

"Matt spent a week trying to make it himself." Elena spoke softly, trying to tame the tiger as he nearly roared. "Caroline fixed the braiding... It unwound, see, and-"

"Why?" His voice was just as hoarse, as though he was about to cry, and for a moment, he felt the kind of hope that somebody other than Elena cared for him, that they would do this for him...

He thought they hated him – they had never given him the time to prove he was a good person. They had never... and yet, they still did it.

His heart swelled with a little bit more goodness, at least until Elena spoke again.

"Well, Caroline just wanted to get me out of there as fast as possible, you know? She still doesn't trust me around Matt... And Matt, well," Elena smiled tiredly as Damon's heart sank, "Well, Matt would do _anything_ for _me_, wouldn't he?" She topped it off with a smile, but Damon didn't see it. He did not see past the surface of her words - they would do anything for _her_.

_For Elena. Not for him._

He was wrong again. Nobody wanted him here, apart from Elena, and honestly, if he looked at it objectively, that was only because he occasionally helped out Stefan. Every shred of thanks drifted away from his heart and he stared at Elena with a dark scowl on his face.

He felt betrayed, he felt hurt, and as he picked up the bracelet and wrapped it around his wrist, he felt more alone than he ever had done before.

_It hurt, so much._

_But nothing ever hurt like her._

.

.

_**Italy, 1990, November**_

.

.

Damon was nervous about the coming moments. Their conversation was going to be awkward, and he honestly feared that it might end with somebody dying, but it had to be done. He was wrapped up in a sheet on her bed, half dressed, half-undressed, as she stood in the bathroom, brushing her teeth and watching him watch her in the mirror. He liked her backside in those knickers, he decided, in a moment of sheer distraction before the panic gripped him again, and Francesca came through into the bedroom.

Steeling himself for the worst, Damon gripped her hand as she sat back down, curled up next to him and wrapped herself up in his arms.

"Listen," he murmured, "There are things you need to know about me, Francesca."

"Things?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, still nestled in his grasp, and frowned slightly, "You're not a mad mass murderer, intent on making me one of your next victims, are you?"

"Er, no?" His voice quirked at the last second and he frowned for a second, "Not... not exactly."

"What then?" She asked, suddenly impatient because he was cutting into the time they had together, "It can't be so bad, can't be terrible. Tell me."

"I'm..." He stopped and watched her for a moment, before deciding that he wouldn't lie, "I'm... A vampire."

Everything thunked into place in some kind of... twisted revelation. The horror-mask that Damon wore when he came too close to a cut or bruise, the first time they had met – his desire to taste her blood, his general distaste for bright sunlight... it all made sense.

She wouldn't let him faze her though.

"Vampiro? Tu sei pazzo! Where are your fangs?" As if to prove her point, but at the same time piecing things together in her head, Francesca laughed aloud. It was most definitely forced though – she believed firmly in the supernatural... and Damon would _never _lie to her.

"They retract and grow when I need them to," Damon said simply, frowning because she wasn't screaming. She wasn't confused and she wasn't... _afraid_?

"Okay, then." She decided to play along, still half-hoping that he was joking, but honestly not particularly worried if he wasn't.

She knew he would never hurt her.

"How can you come out in the sunlight?" She clambered over the covers to straddle his hips and run her fingers across his cheeks, "Why aren't you pale?"

"It's not like Dracula, Francesca," he murmured, "We don't change into bats... Although we do burn in the sunlight... But that's easily alleviated with this," he held up his hand and showed off the Lapis Lazuli ring which allowed him to become a DayWalker.

"It's pretty," Francesca fingered it lightly before Damon stilled her hand. There was a pause where he brought his palm up to touch hers, slightly cooler in the shade of her bedroom.

"I _can _however, become a crow, or a wolf... Or... I could..." He stopped again, shut his eyes and began to concentrate, his brow furrowing in the middle. "Look out of the window."

Slowly, and more than a little confused, Francesca rose to her feet and padded across to the bay window where Damon had snuck in so easily only an hour or so before. What she saw was a little more than stunning.

"You changed the w-weather?" Francesca raised her hand and felt the fog that had rolled in, thick to look at, like a sea fog, but thin and mystic, almost beautiful as it took on a very distinct path and began to swirl around her body, dampening her flannel pyjama bottoms and leaving her silk camisole stuck to her skin. It weaved a pattern around her body, twisted around her torso, made  
her gasp and sigh, laughing lightly as she held out a hand, and Damon's concentration shifted to twist the feeling around her hand.

"I can control the rain, the fog, lightning..." Damon muttered, looking anywhere but at her, "it's... It's called Power, and it's-"

"_Beautiful_."

"Dark."

They said the words at the same time, and with her single utterance, the fog swiftly dissipated to be replaced by the blinding sun-glare that had been there only minutes before. Damon's heart lifted a little way; she did not seem to be scared. She seemed, it appeared, to be a little bit enthralled, and, if his senses weren't failing him, and he was hearing her breathing properly, a little bit more than aroused.

"You think so?" He was unsure of what she was thinking, and it irritated him... Or was it worry? He didn't know, but he didn't like the feeling of unease he got because he thought she might be scared of what he could do. "You think that bringing this kind of Power to the world is beautiful? I could influence you to do whatever I wanted you to, and you'd never know..."

"No," she whispered, "_You_ wouldn't." The gravity of her words pushed through him and made him shake. She trusted him so much.

"I _could_, though, Francesca, and doesn't that scare you even just a little bit?"

"You _wouldn't_ do me wrong," she said, then, with a little more conviction, "Show me."

"What?" Damon wasn't entirely sure his senses _were _working properly; no normal human would ask that of him. _Then again, he knew Francesca was special. _

"Influence me. Show me what you would have me do." She whispered, feeling all the more brazen as the seconds passed.

"I-I don't think..." Damon was at a temporary loss for words, "I don't think it's a very good idea."

"Try."

"Okay," Damon nodded slowly, and then channelled his Power into his eyes, into influencing the pretty girl in front of him. _His pretty girl_. "Undress," he muttered, "and do it slowly."

He blinked slowly, and she ran a hand through her hair.

"Why, do I have to be naked for it to work?" She quirked her eyebrow slightly and Damon frowned.

"No. That should have... You ought to be naked, Francesca."

"Why?"

"I tried to make you strip... to influence you to..."

"Well," Francesca was petulant now, "Why aren't I?" She was almost disappointed that he wasn't having his own fun.

"I don't know... Let me try again," he took two steps closer to her and wrapped his hand around her wrist, pulling her closer to him, making her gasp as his other hand touched her face ever so lightly, "Fight me off."

His hands dropped to her waist and her lips parted as he slowly pressed his lips to her neck, pressing open mouthed kisses all along the pulse there. She remained still, enjoying the sensation immensely as his teeth gently broke her skin and Damon did what he did best, he drank.

Seconds later, he was pulling away, taking an immense amount of control and making Francesca gasp at the loss of contact.

"You... Were supposed to fight..." He threw himself away from her, across to the other side of the room, "Why didn't you try to fight?"

"I didn't want to! It felt too... It felt too _good._" She ran a hand up her neck and groaned at the sensations Damon had left her with, "No marks?" She looked up at him, "it's like... Like magic."

"Magic's just a bunch of trickery and lies, Francesca, this actually _works_..."

"Maybe... Your conscience is holding back your Power?" Francesca offered after a few seconds, "Maybe you don't want to influence me, so no matter how hard you try, you can't."

He heard her words, but they echoed in a different way. He heard her words, but to him, they said something entirely different. They told him he couldn't do it because he... _Cared_.

He knew something was brewing between them. Something special.

.

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

.

"Please tell me you didn't do this." He really was hoping that this was just some kind of horrific, or confused daydream, and she was not honestly attempting to hand him the first tangible piece of Francesca that he had ever owned.

"Why? Damon, you never make any sense." He thought about raising his hand and just smashing something, anything, to get the feelings of fury, annoyance and just plain hurt out of him.

"Do you have any kind of idea how painful this is?" He held the band up and just looked at it. It glistened a little in the constantly changing, flickering reflections of the firelight, and every part of him ached to be teasing the fiery Italian girl who had owned the damn thing in the first place, on the night of her nineteenth birthday, back at the beginning of the best – and worst, times of his life.

"What? I thought- Damon, I thought you'd be happy-" Elena turned her face up to look at him and Damon simply shook his head.

"Happy? Elena, I took this from Francesca twice. The first time, was the night I met her," He stopped and allowed the memory to wash over him, unable to breathe as the warm weight of Francesca became a fleeting delusion. "And the second time... it was the night I killed her."

"What?"

"You heard me. Don't play games." He stopped and looked at her, close, then, to simply running from the house and executing Q14 with immediate effect. He bit his lip and blinked away the thoughts. "I don't like these kind of games."

And yet, he knew that he was playing them with everyone he knew, every minute, every hour, every second of this life.

"You killed her?" Elena ground out the words, and he looked at her, walls, defences built up around every part of his heart, his eyes, his face, his mind.

With those defences, honed over nearly seventeen years of intense repression, he was able to say three words, get up, and walk away without falling to his knees and sobbing.

"Yes, I did."

* * *

.

.

.

.

_A/N: Review?_

_I'll take any and all abuse you want to fling. No actual mud, please. Computers don't like it._

_Tissues for next chapter, please. And yes. You will need them._


	21. Chapter 21

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm sorry. **_

_**TISSUES WARNING. TISSUES WARNING. TISSUES WARNING.**_

_**I'm going to destroy all of the love for this story that any of you had. I'm sorry. There's music to go with it – "All I Need" – Within Temptation. **_

_**Billimonroe, g1rlanachr0n1sm, pandora03, mouse555. Ungh. Shit. I honestly am sorry. **_

_**Enjoy!**_

__

**.**

* * *

**_._**

**_._**

**_._**

**_._**

_**2010 **_

.

.

.

"I loved her more than anything, so it was obvious that I wouldn't stand to see her in so much pain. It was quick, I promise you that, Elena, and I promise that it has never, ever left me." His bottom lip seemed to quiver, and Elena stared at him as he broke their gaze and he quickly wiped his eyes.

"What _are_ you talking about, Damon?" Elena's eyes were searching Damon's face for a sign of something, anything, but all she could see was a dark, embarrassed sheen to his cheeks. As soon as she noticed it, he cast his eyes down and brought his fingers up to rub at the colour. He knew she thought he was embarrassed, but, as with most humans, he knew she had misread it. What he was, in reality, was ashamed.

"I wish she was here." Damon whispered, ducking his head and rubbing at his temples, "She would understand," There was a quiet pause, "and no offense, but I don't feel _half_ as much for you as I did for her."

"I'm pretty sure you don't feel anything, Damon." Elena managed, looking straight into Damon's blank stare. She honestly could not understand how, if you loved somebody so much, you could do such a thing, "I'm pretty sure of that." There was silence as she watched him, and he dropped his head into his hands.

"You wouldn't understand." Damon seemed to have turned off the filter between his internal monologue and his mouth, "You haven't had to _kill_ to keep him." Damon gestured vaguely in the direction of Stefan's bedroom, and Elena's jaw dropped open as she realised exactly what he meant. "And you didn't _lose_ him in the process either. I couldn't stand to see it, Elena. She was so... scared, so broken..."

He could not look at anything but the fire as he spoke his next words.

"I loved her," he whispered, "So I had to let her go."

"Damon," Elena began, "You of _all_ people know that there are always other plans... There is always another way. I know it's too late, I mean, hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but... Maybe you didn't have to_-"_

"You haven't got a clue, have you?" Damon was beyond words. His fingertips gripped the table in front of him and he tossed it aside, straight through the window as though it were a book, as though it were nothing, "I still hear her screaming, begging me to... I still see her... I cannot even breathe, without thinking of her."

"Damon-" As though she had finally realised the weight of his words, Elena reached out to him and watched his hands falter, move away from hers as he toyed with that damned black leather bracelet.

"You don't have a clue, Elena."

.

.

.

_**Italy, January, 1994**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

Damon wanted to fight it. He wanted to say something, do something, make all of her pain shut down, to stop.

"I want to die."

He had been able to deny her nothing but this, though it was a wave of darkness which had swept over him and left him reeling as she had begged, pleaded... She had tried to use sex and blood anything. _Everything_.

_But she never stopped loving him._

Her hands would hold his in the darkness and she would tell him everything she loved about him, about their time together as she waited for the sun to rise.

"I need to be there." Damon said, "If you want this... If it has to be done, I need to be there, and I need to know." He stopped short of saying what the pair of them knew.

_**He**__ had to do it. He couldn't stand to see her in any more pain. _

"I can't live like a... _Demon_." She whispered, clinging onto his hands in the darkness as though he could forever be her saviour.

"You never have." His fingertips grazed against her cheek, and his hands and lips told her everything she already knew. She would have him forever. _Sempre_.

.

Damon was horrible. He was selfish and dangerous and would do anything at all to get what he wanted. He read books in minutes, attempted to cut swathes through libraries in order to understand, to try and fix everything that seemed to be crashing around his ears.

She was incapacitated. It had been horrendous to do, but Damon couldn't stand to see her losing herself in the way that she was. Nothing was right, nothing was good when she was barely able to look at herself in the mirror, unable to look him in the eye. She was scared of Stefan. She withdrew from everything, everyone aside from Damon.

It was a temptation to take her away from everything, or to find a way to turn back time, but there was nothing he could do. This was no VHS tape to be rewound, it was no cassette. If it had been, then the tape inside would have been knotted, tangled. It was horrible to see her.

So he had sedated her with vervain. The half-minute of screaming, where he had been forced to hold her, rubbing circles against her palms to calm her down, was almost worth it to see her sleeping so calmly, unconscious but still holding onto him. Sedated. He had to sedate his fucking wife. _How low did he feel?_

It all began to get worse. She started to beg for a way out, screaming, terrified when she was awake. Damon was unable to stand it. Not any longer.

"I can't do anything." He lamented when he was alone, stood under a cold shower just so he could _feel _once again. Fury coursed through him as he felt – useless and pathetic. Slammed hands against the wall meant bathroom tiles splintered and cracked. "I said I'd fight for her."

But sometimes you have to give in.

.

Today would be the worst day of Damon's life. Hands down, no questions.

He had spent what felt like three months, but was only a few days trying to fix himself, to close off his mental state so that this would not hurt him at all. It had not worked, and, with every breath he took, he felt a searing pain in his chest.

Francesca was not afraid of anything anymore. _No, _she realised, _she was afraid of __herself__, and afraid of leaving Damon. _But to be free of one, to be free of the danger she posed to humanity, she had to face the fear of the other, of being apart from him. Besides, he knew she was always, _always_ going to be there. _She would never leave him. _

In the darkness of their bedroom, lit only by one candle across the room, and the moonlight they both loved to feel, Damon sat facing Francesca, and traced away her tears with his fingertips. In response, she hiccupped a sob and reached around her wrist, unclasping the black leather bracelet and pressing it into his open hand.

"I'm sorry," She whispered, shuddering in his arms, "You know I'm sorry." He nodded again, rubbing his hands up and down her arms, "Please be happy, Damon. That's all I want for you." Her lips sought out his, and slowly, languidly, they kissed, as though they had all the time in the world.

"You will always be the one," he whispered, "and know that if I had my way... I would save you, Francesca. I promise you," he murmured into her neck, "One day, I'll save you."

With gentle hands, as though he was handling a spindle of crystal, or a dying flower, not his _princess of darkness_, he pulled her into his arms and sat cradling her as she held on. He had resigned himself, to this, but he knew... His heart was full and she knew he loved her with everything inside of him.

"I will wait for you," she whispered, her fingertips tracing patterns on his palms, "_forever_." He nodded against the top of her head, and pulled her into his arms for one, final, soul-binding kiss.

When Damon pulled away, for he had realised that delaying the inevitable was simply going to make it hurt more, he felt as though there was gold within him, pure, honest and true as he felt every part of him tingle and burn.

_Love honestly hurt. _

He understood now, and he understood that sometimes, pain for one was for the good of another. He wrapped his arms around her as she settled her back against his chest, some kind of connection blending them together for the final time. With His arms wrapped around her, she took one deep breath, and begged him one last time to never let her go.

"_Ti amo, Damon_," She murmured, nodding and holding onto the arm he held around her waist. It was protective, it was familiar... It was _definitely_ Damon – telling her everything he felt without having the difficulty of finding the words.

His other hand reached out behind him, and as he felt the wood between his fingers, he dropped his forehead to the back of her neck and pressed a solemn kiss to the bare skin that was there.

"I will _always_ love you, Francesca, know that." She nodded softly, and, with one swift and startling movement, he brought the stake down, straight through her heart. Her head dropped forward, and violently, she shook against him, trembling and her head dropped back against his shoulder.

To her credit, her eyes were closed and she did not make a sound. If his fingers had not been covered in blood and holding the ash-stake so tightly to stave off the sickness rising in his own throat, he would have assumed he was only causing her measureless pleasure, the way he had done a million times before.

She did not make a sound as any kind of life fell away from her, yet as Damon pulled the stake from her, he let out a howl that would rival that of the most distraught wolf. Sobs tore from Damon's chest as he held her like they did in the movies, pain shooting through his every movement, his every breath a breath of agony and resentment, and, perhaps most horrifyingly, a breath of pure selfishness and shame. He wished he had something, some way to bring her to life again.

He did not care that it would hurt her, he did not care that it was against her wishes. She had been gone for a moment, not even a heartbeat in his extended lifetime, but it felt as though everything were rushing up to meet him, all of the pain and hurt he had held onto because of Katherine, all of the love and happiness he could feel for Francesca, they mixed, fought and combated, in an attempt to dominate within him. His emotions battled, they fought, and, as they swirled, Damon went numb.

He felt sick.

He was in pain.

_He was alone._

He held her body close until the morning, when the sunlight streamed through the windows and he felt the familiar heat of its rays. Slowly, carefully, he reached for his wife's... for _Francesca's_ hand, cold and unmoving, and kissed it lightly, sliding away her wedding ring, and with it, the Lapis Lazuli which protected her skin. She may have been dead, but she was still a vampire, and as though the sun's light recognised this, it began to burn her, until all Damon held within his fingers was a simple, silver wedding band.

.

.

.

.

_**2010**_

.

.

.

"I... I didn't know." Elena bowed her head as she watched Damon close off to the rest of the world. His eyes went dead – anyone would have been able to see the defences slide in front of his pupils, losing his eminent sarcasm and definite smirk, and his forehead creased a little more in the middle, making him look as though he were about to cry.

"I know." Even his tone was flat, so stark and dry compared to the lightness which usually followed with his words.

"Is that why... Stefan-"

"I don't want to talk about that." Damon replied flatly, knowing that there would be a time where Stefan would explain to Elena what he found when he stepped into _The Bedroom_ hours past midday.

A shadow of Damon, darkness in the corner and everything, absolutely _everything _smashed to pieces, aside from the pair of earrings she had worn on their wedding day, the Lapis Lazuli Wedding Ring Damon had strung onto the bracelet around his wrist for fear of bending or breaking it as he did what he did best – caused destruction, and a small, black notebook which had everything she had ever written for him, to him, for his eyes only.

_He did not want to think of that. _

Elena could not bear to watch it. Damon did not want her to see it. He rose, crossed the room and fled, seeking solace and safety on his own, _again. _

_He did not want to think again._

But he did, and it was as though the noise would never stop.

_._

_._

_._

_._

* * *

_A/N:_

_I'm afraid to ask, but Review?_


	22. Chapter 22

_**Disclaimer: Pshhtttt, as if I own it. **_

_**So, chapter 21 hit you guys pretty hard, didn't it? I did warn you. **_

_**Dear Billimonroe, G1rlanachr0n1sm, Pandora03 and Mouse555... Ti amo. And I'm pretty sure Damon does too. **_

__

**Enjoy.**

* * *

_._

_._

_._

_._

_**3:15AM, Christmas Day, 2010**_

.

Pain is a curious concept. It has two sides – affliction and infliction. One hurts, and, in the long run, Damon considered, the other hurts too.

He did not _enjoy _inflicting pain upon other people, but there was a grim kind of satisfaction that the pain he had inflicted upon them – Elena, because of the bracelet, Stefan, because he just didn't know, or care to understand what Damon was going through, the list was _endless _– would be the same pain that kept everybody away.

Slowly, and a little muddled by the jumble of words in his head, he picked up the fountain pen he had borrowed from Bonnie Bennett and began to write.

"_Dear Elena – And Saint Stefan, because I know you're listening,_

_I am sorry. For everything. There's very little else to say, I suppose, because I'm sure you know it all, sure that you can see everything all so perfectly clearly and right and just __**wrong**__. You think you have a clue about living this life, Elena? I have lost everything because of my actions, and you think that apologising can make it all okay?_

_Elena, ask Stefan about the words he said to me when he found me that night. Go on – I dare you. I'm sure you'll hate what you hear._

_Everything hurts right now all the way down to taking simple breaths and opening my eyes to see the dawn of a brand new day – and I know that you will not respect this decision straight away, that you'll think I'm stupid and horrible and selfish – but do you know what? That's exactly what the hell I am. I don't care about the aftermath of all of this shit because think about it – after all the things that I've been through, would __**you**__?_

_I'm not a bad guy, Elena, and really, I mean that. I do things wrong, and I'm willing to accept that I screw up all the time, but I don't mean to do it. Well. Sometimes I do, but most of the time, it's just... everybody screws up, Elena. _

_Me more than most, I suppose. I simultaneously want to hurt and hug Stefan, because nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, he broke me down, and forced me to feed, to walk the earth for over a century and shut down my humanity in a way that he never did. Then, by chance, and because I was following him around, bored, I made the mistake of going into a party at quite a big house. _

_And I met the person who was going to become my life. I didn't know it, but that was probably the biggest mistake I've ever made... not that I'm calling Francesca a mistake. Because she was in no way wrong... I just should have walked away when I had the chance – because it broke me, and reopened me to a humanity which I was wholly unprepared to accept. But I accepted it, and I embraced it, and she infused herself into everything._

_Literally everything, Elena, and that's what made it so difficult to let her go. I don't expect you to understand, and I don't expect you to know what it feels like to have to do something like that, but... just know that in the end, I think my life has been one big mistake._

_I just can't keep doing it. I've made enough mistakes, hurt enough people, and the one person who could see through all of that... well. You know what happened there. _

_Damon."_

.

.

.

_**Italy, 1994**_

.

.

.

"The disappearance of Francesca Salvatore, from the home she shared with her husband, and her brother- in-law, on the night of the third of January was extremely unexpected, and, as of the past twenty four hours, the search for her has been called off. After four months, it is believed that she is unwilling to come home, or, in the more unfortunate case, is unable to come home, and, unfortunately, the complete lack of evidence has led to the trail going cold."

As Damon listened to the recording, he heard nothing but static. Stefan had called the police immediately, stating that neither he, nor Damon had heard a thing from Francesca in three days, and Damon had been forced to lie, lie and lie again, in every interview he had conducted with the police, Francesca's father... hell, even to himself.

More and more, he was determined to get away – and it was approaching Christmas time, and the end of the year. He had held on for a year, trying to believe a lie of his brother's design, convincing himself that she had chosen to leave him, that she had broken his heart on purpose.

Obviously, that was untrue. She would never have done that. She felt that she had no choice in the matter, that she was evil... when she was not.

"_L'imbarco sarà all'uscita numero trentacinque." _The highly-made-up, plastic woman sitting at the check-in desk left Damon desperate to shower, to vomit or to simply get out of there, as fast as in-humanly possible.

"_Grazie_." He nodded and stepped as quickly as possible away, to the departure lounge.

_This was it. He was leaving it all behind. _

"It's over." He whispered, to nobody in particular, looking at the floor, then back to the ceiling, then down at the floor again. He had been in Italy for twenty years, twenty years which, at their climax, left his very core shaken, disturbed and incredibly, incredibly alone.

If anybody had been sitting beside, or opposite Damon Salvatore, as he sat alone in the departure lounge impatiently, tiredly, they would most definitely have been able to see the humanity in him switch off.

The colour in his eyes, always so bright and almost sparkling – at least, that's what Francesca had told him, deadened into a dull-glacial blue, and a crease in his forehead tightened just a little bit, a frown appearing in the corners of his mouth. Damon did not breathe for a long minute, almost feeling the walls slide up around his heart, encasing the dead organ in nothing more than empty space. He was sure that he held his soul in there as well, but he did not think of that.

As far as he was concerned, now, after he had lost Francesca, he had lost his soul-mate, and by extension, he had lost his soul.

When the boarding call came, Damon rose from the hard plastic seat, having stared so hard into the wall that he feared it would suffer permanent structural damage.

_No. He didn't feel at all. He had simply glared at the wall for the better part of about three hours, hating it. Hating everything._

He strode slowly through the departures lounge, turning more than one head as he went. His silent steps and slow grace made him the fleeting object of more than one woman's affections, yet for longer than any of them could consider, he would feel an affection that he could not quite place, a warmth that washed over him in his darkest moments – a shot of tequila in a night filled with vodka cocktails.

It was a feeling that was strange, but not unpleasant, and, as he shut his eyes, reclining in his spacious, first class seat, he was sure he could feel a hand resting over his. Blinking his eyes open, and rocketing his head up, he noted that he was alone.

It was always the same. For nearly a decade, it would hurt more than anybody would ever know.

.

.

.

_**26**__**th**__** December, 2010**_

.

.

.

Elena rolled over and heard a crinkle underneath the pillow. It must have been just before dawn – so she was midway between waking up and remaining asleep, but the sound definitely woke her.

Slipping her hand underneath the soft cushion, she felt the weight of an envelope beneath her hands and pulled it from the folds of fabric.

Damon's handwriting had addressed the envelope in an effervescently sarcastic manner.

"_Lady Elena Gilbert, In the Bedroom, Beneath the Pillow, With the Bedside Lamp."_

She slid a fingernail under the flap, breaking the seal, just as the sun came up. Seconds later, the town was blanketed by rainfall. It did not last long, a minute, two, maybe, but as Elena slipped the paper from the envelope, read it up and down, and choked back a sob...

"Damon..." She glanced up at the window, straight into the burning sunlight.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

_A/N: Chapter 23 will be up Sunday or Saturday. I haven't decided. _

_Reviews?_


	23. Chapter 23

_**Disclaimer: No, no, I don't own it. **_

_**I'm sorry. It's difficult to say that this is the last chapter, (bar the epilogue, which will be up on Monday), because this has been a fucking ride filled with highs, lows, goofy Damon and Dangerous D. You guys have been more awesome than an awesome thing, though, and you've blown my mind all over. So it wrecks me to post this. But I am. G1rlanachr0n1sm, Pandora03, Billimonroe, mouse555... you all massively own me. Like a lot. **_

_**There's another Author's note at the bottom for you to read, as well. **_

_**Hm. Enjoy? Maybe. Tissues? Probably. **_

.

* * *

.

.

**26****th**** December, 2010**

.

So, it had come to this. Damon Salvatore, standing alone, once again, at just past midnight on Boxing Day, staring up at the ceiling and building up the courage to let go. It was happening all over again. His head was spinning, his undead heart pounding louder than he could ever have thought as static rushed around his head.

_He could barely breathe. _

There was no denying that things in Mystic Falls were darker now. Shades of black were everywhere in the middle of the night, people were suspicious; Damon was apart from them all, revelling in the feeling. _Reviling the feeling. _

Shadows felt more difficult to force away, and though he would never, ever admit it, Damon felt scared. It was probably, he reasoned, due to the almost painful amount of Power within him, throwing his senses haywire, making him gasp aloud as he tried to release some of the onslaught, and with every throb which exploded through him, through his fingertips and down to his toes, he felt a little weight fall from him. From the anchor which lay heavy in his chest.

It didn't hurt as much anymore, yet, as another throb surged through him, he let out a keening groan and launched to his feet. He was filled with absolute fury and sheer pain. A combination of the past decade boiling up, exploding into being. Suddenly, he was sprinting through the Boarding House at a speed even he had not anticipated, deadly volumes of Power building within him.

_God be with whoever ran into Damon Salvatore in the middle of the night. _

.

He had supposed it was raining, that the heavens had opened as he ran through the empty cemetery, water falling upon his cheeks and into his eyes, forcing him to shake his head, throw it from side to side like a dog to clear his blurred, shattered vision.

For once in his second life, Damon felt _human_. He felt breakable, he felt as though he would do anything to begin again – as long as it took away the searing pain that was convulsing through him.

_This, _he mused, _was truly a loss of control. _

He was standing silent in the road beside the Old Wood when he realised that it was not the weather, but that he was sobbing aloud, tears dripping down his cheeks and pain ripping through his chest every time he tried to breathe.

"I'm _sorry_!" He shouted at the sky, not knowing who, _or what, _could hear him, but hoping against hope that someone would be there to hold his hand.

_No. He did not deserve comfort. He did not deserve company. He deserved to die alone, cold and naked, kicking and screaming in the largest amount of pain he had ever thought he could experience._

_Damon Salvatore would always be alone._

_._

"Damon?" It was _her_ voice. At least, he _thought_ so, but it was _just_ a delusion, and however reluctantly, he knew it. For a second, he basked in the glow of the brightness she always brought with her, then, his fantasy exploded around him and he was left, once more, in the dark.

Wheeling around, Damon saw the tiny figure of Bonnie emerging slowly from the Old Wood. She was well dressed, as usual, and Damon felt another surge of sadness as she looked him up and down.

"What're you doing here?" His walls went up as he spoke, but it was the answer that he got which terrified him.

"Simply existing. Just like you." She stopped pacing when she stood about eight feet in front of him and held up her hands to prove she was no threat, "You're going to the High School, aren't you?" She asked the question simply – as though she knew the answer anyway, with no sense of worry, humour or concern, just simple resignation.

_It was as though she just didn't care. _Damon almost laughed at the thought, then returned to reality, to look into her eyes. He shrugged tiredly, feigning nonchalance, but still trying to catch his breath.

"Maybe," He shrugged and shook his head, "I... I don't know." He shrugged again, steadily beginning to centre himself, "If I _were_ to head that way, how would I get onto the roof?"

Bonnie didn't seem fazed by the question; in fact, she seemed painfully aware that she was conversing with danger incarnate.

"There are steps from the history rooms to the roof garden," She stretched up and grinned lazily as Damon watched her, "And you can get from the roof garden to the other buildings if you've got a decent jump on you." She stopped again, "You're a vampire. You've got a good stride, no?" It was as though she was appraising him, as she took a couple of steps toward him and he stepped back, ready to start moving again.

"Thank you, Bonnie." He nodded and turned away. Her lips quirked into a half smile. For her, from him, it was enough. "Go home and get some sleep."

"Goodbye, Damon," She called softly as he turned away to disappear into the night, "And bless you."

She blinked, and he was gone, shimmering trails of darkness and gold the only remnants of a young man troubled in an irreparable way.

.

It took Damon a considerably shorter time to break into the school than he had thought was possible. There were so few security measures placed upon the building that he wondered whether simply sneezing would blow the doors wide open. He didn't stop to try.

As a vampire, blessed with brilliant eyesight, amplified senses and god knows what other sensory advantages, it was easy for Damon to navigate his way through the expanse of corridors and find the slim, spiral staircase which led to the school's roof garden, but as a man, it took him a long time to find the courage to enter the hallway alone.

He stood on the threshold of the corridor, rocking back and forth on his heels and staring up into the blackness and darkness of the night. It was as though he was waiting for someone to appear. Anyone. _Anything. _He was desperate and alone.

"_Hold my hand._" Damon whispered, _begged_ into thin air as he stepped through the doorway to the roof and found himself standing alone with an incredible vista across the rooftops of the entire town.

He could see everything, and he realised that there was nothing left for him.

.

It took him three steps to abandon his leather jacket, placing it on the bench of the roof garden as he passed, a feeling of final elation spreading through him like wildfire.

_They_ wouldn't have understood what he was thinking at that moment – how he felt. They definitely didn't understand the world around them as well as he did – love and loss went hand in hand, and it would take a lot of time to comprehend it all. If he had had a proper religion, Damon would have prayed for the town itself – for his brother, for Bonnie, and for dear, sweet Elena, who _seemed_ to care when nobody else _seemed_ to give a damn.

He felt the tears rising in his throat as he sat slowly on the dewy roof of the dark, empty High School and curled up, drawing his knees up to his chest as he held his hand up in front of him, letting out a soft laugh.

This felt so wrong, but so, so right.

Leaning back to look up at the sky, he undid the top two buttons of his shirt and let out a sigh as he watched the Lapis Lazuli stone twinkle in the darkness before dawn.

"I love you," He murmured, "And I'm _sorry_." It seemed that all he ever did was apologise.

In one swift movement, he pulled the ring from his finger and threw it as hard as he possibly could, out into the distance until it was gone – into the blackness and lost to him forever.

.

When the sun rose, Damon was on his feet and he was set firm, trying, for all the world, to appear as though he did not fear a thing. Each ray exploded into being, and hit him, starting at his bare feet, rising up, and stripping him bare. His first thought was that it _hurt_. Everything hurt, every part of him, but he wondered whether that was from the Power which was exploding from within every inch of him as the sun rose over the horizon, opposed to the actual sunlight.

Beams of light struck him and he almost began to dance around like a puppy chasing shadows to avoid them, until his self control won out, and, clenching his fists in an incredible display of his will, he thought of the only thing which would get him through something like this.

_He thought of her. _

Of the hair which gleamed auburn in the sunlight, but when she stepped into the shade became black and yet still gleamed. Of the soft, pink lips which had kissed him more than once, twice, _a million times, _and told him that she loved him.

_That she knew him._

_That she would stay with him forever._

_**Forever**__. _

The walls inside his chest exploded, pressure and burning in the most dreadful combination making him desperate to give in, to cry.

_She was slim, in a damn-white-lacy-off-the-shoulder-thing._

It was his hands and face which surrendered first, pure sunlight disintegrating even the bracelet which he wore around his defenceless wrists.

_She tasted like summer, as though all she would eat was strawberries._

As though he had a fever, fire, spread by circulation, a feeling of sheer anguish spread up his limbs, through his muscles as though it were lactic acid to a runner.

_She was beautiful, no, incomparable, nothing in the world came close._

The last thing on Earth that Damon Salvatore saw was the sheer, raw beauty of a sunrise.

_Francesca was his. _

_._

_._

_**26**__**th**__** December, 2010, 11AM**_

_**.**_

_._

Elena barrelled through the streets of Mystic Falls, not caring that more than once, she fell over, more than once, embarrassment shone through and she felt her face heating up in the explosion of cold which she experienced every so often, wind bracing her, forcing her to stiffen at every intersection and sprint across icy roads.

_She had to get to him. _

When she reached the Salvatore place, she pounded her tiny fists on the heavy oak door, and was almost disappointed to see Stefan holding the door open, staring back at her with a half-smile on his face.

"Elena, I didn't expec-"

In a half-second, she had sprinted past him, breezed past him and raced to the second floor, shoving open Damon's bedroom door and pulling violently at the bedclothes, almost tearing the spread apart in the hopes that he was lying there, sleeping. That she could wake him.

"He's not here, Elena." Stefan's voice echoed from the doorway, and her heart dropped straight through her stomach.

He wasn't there. She finally understood, she got it, and He. _Wasn't_. _There_.

"Why didn't you stop him?" She turned and shrieked at him, face reddened by the cold, and the sheer panic that was rising in her, "You knew, didn't you?" Stefan didn't understand at all, "You knew it would come to this!"

"Come to what? I don't understand-"

"He's gone! Stefan, Damon's..." She shook her head and clutched at her hair, "No! Damon! Come out, you bastard!" As Stefan wrapped his arms around her, hearing her screams and hoping that they would stop as she beat against his chest with her fists, he knew it was all too late. The tears, the emotion and the pleas for him to return were falling on ears that couldn't hear them.

Even if it was possible, he wouldn't have come.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

_A/N: The following is properly long, and probably very annoying, and should have been left to the epilogue, but I want to get it in here: _

_1: There will be __**Five**__ official outtakes for this story, which I will be publishing from the __**18**__**th**__** of July,**__ over a couple of weeks. They will be the same length as a chapter, but will be outtakes. Obviously. _

_2: To those who have reviewed; dear god, __**I love you**__. You're awesome. You've made me smile, laugh, cry, giggle, sob, and have left me speechless too._

_3: I have three __**REAL DElena**__ oneshots (and twoshots) that I am lining up. One is already half-typed, and will be coming later on this week... I'm really sorry if I faked you out on the DElena front in this story... but yaknow. I'll try to make it up to you. _

_4: to xxxbulletxxx, and anybody else who doesn't get or "see the point" in this story, let me break it down to the simple message: __**Damon was not in stasis for a century and a half, and he did not spend it alone.**__ He did things in the 145 years between Katherine and Elena that he was not proud of, that hurt him, and other people, and that he cannot erase. He made mistakes, and he met the one person who he thought he could have for eternity. Karma's a bitch, and everything came rushing back to the point where he could not keep going. This is the story of that time, and the point in time where he realised that he really, really had nothing to live for. So yeah. Hm. That's all. *steps off of soap box and closes notebook* _

_5: fuck. Just, __**thank**__**you**__. If you've enjoyed this story, or hated it, or have five minutes and fancy a chat... please review. I'd love to see this hit 100 reviews. Which is arrogant, but it would be lovely. _

_Tha's all, and yeh, I've chatted utter BS, but thank you! And thank you ALL so much for sticking with me! __**Epilogue will be up on Monday**__. __**MONDAY**__, I say._


	24. Epilogue

_**Disclaimer: End of. I don't own TVD. Blame LJSmith and the CW. Because I don't. **_

I hope to god this is the some-kind of conclusion you were looking for.

_If not, forget it existed, end it on chapter 23. _

__

**Thanks. That's all I have to say.**

* * *

..

..

..

..

**Epilogue**

..

..

..

..

At first, he felt nothing, saw nothing, and then remembered to breathe. It was at that point that he realised his eyes were closed. He also felt very, _very _naked.

"Damon?" He was hallucinating, surely. He had to have been. If he wasn't, then for sure, he was insane.

She stroked a fingertip down his cheek, followed the line of his neck so that her hand was resting on his shoulder. There was fire all over his body, all along the path she was taking. There was no way in hell that he was even going to _dare _to open his eyes for fear of losing the touch of his beautiful delusion.

"I won't disappear," She murmured, and he knew, _knew _it was her. "I've been waiting for you."

"You will." And for a second, he wondered why he sounded so vulnerable, so alone. Then he realised he was fucking _scared_. He didn't think he could handle losing her _again_. "You always do. It's just a delusion, always a delusion."

_Silence._

"I knew she'd leave," He found his lips tingled as he spoke, feeling a little detached, a little uncomfortable, and reached up to touch them as an attempt to calm the sensation. Other, slimmer, slightly warmer fingers got there first.

"I've never left you." She said simply, he jumpstarted, but still kept his eyes closed tight. "I've always been around." There was a pause and she ran her fingers up and down his upper arm again. To him, it was the best feeling in the world. "Now, for god's sake, Damon. _Aprite gli occhi_!"

She accompanied it with a demanding smack to his upper arm, and Damon felt a light weight across his hips. Solid delusions. _Damon Salvatore could take Death to a new level_.

"No," He fought simply, "You'll disappear." He growled the words, but felt a strangely solid hand take his and squeeze it. His hallucination was beginning to _feel real. _He surely was insane.

"I won't. You have my word."

"Don't let go." He begged, and she swore she wouldn't.

"I promise," A fingertip traced the curves and hollows of his cheekbones, just underneath his eyes, "Please Damon, I've missed your eyes." There was the tingle of a soft kiss pressed to each of his eyelids, "Open them."

_He did. _

At first, he wondered what was happening – after decades of Power, he was accustomed to hawk-like vision, sharp and defined, and the blur of human eyes meant that he felt blind, then, as he blinked twice, three times, she began to take shape and focus.

"It's you." He managed to splutter dumbly, and she nodded, her mouth pressed together to fight away the sudden onslaught of seven years of pent-up emotion. He was real. She was real. All of it was far too much.

"Uhhuh." She squeaked as she nodded more.

"I never stopped loving you," He whispered as he dared to take her face between his hands, "You know that, don't you?"

"Sempre, Damon Salvatore." She whispered, before leaning forward to push her lips to his. "_Per Sempre, mia anima gemella." _

Forever.

_There was nothing more to say. _

_._

As the sun rose across Mystic Falls, Bonnie Bennett left her grandmother's house and, for the first time in a very long while did not feel the oppressive darkness or the searing sunlight which made her ache and want to cry.

Slowly taking the four steps down from their porch to the lawn, she felt her foot nudge something down on the path. Glancing down at it, she noticed an ornate, silver ring adorned with what looked like Lapis Lazuli, or something just as precious, nestled into the grass.

It glittered in the sunlight, and Bonnie decided it was pretty enough to pick up and keep. She crouched down in order to pick it up, but let out a gasp as her fingers wrapped around the precious stone.

A thousand different images, memories of a time shelved, pushed aside or repressed, exploded into life before her eyes, but the feelings... _oh the feelings. _

_Love. Pure, honest and unchained. _

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

* * *

_A/N: your reviews have been heartwrenching, and heartwarming. Your constant love has been almost as incredible. _

_Translations: _

_Aprite gli occhi – open your eyes._

_Per sempre, mia anima gemella – forever, my soul mate._


	25. OUTTAKES COMING NOW

**_To all those who are interested in reading the five outtakes of 'No Good Deed', they are being posted under a separate story – "No Good Deed Outtakes" _**

**_Available now, on both my profile, and at the following web address: _**

**_www (dot) fanfiction (dot) net (slash) s (slash) 6153788 (slash) 1  
_**

**_Please check them out, and review?_**

**_Thank you, _**

**_Xx Kate xX _**


End file.
